A Cashless Checkout at the SU: a Practical System or a Strategic Practice?
By Arianne Guillemot
For anyone studying or working at Queen’s University, the Student’s Union (SU) is a mandatory stop. Whether it is to buy lunch, grab some merch, or study in a warm and welcoming place, we all have heard of it or seen it.
Therefore, a detail that you may have noticed is that you can only pay for your items by card. You might think at first sight that it is not “that deep” and that it doesn’t require change or critique, but I believe otherwise.
I must say, myself, that as an international student, when I arrived here in Belfast, I had prepared cash to pay, as it was less costly for me to do so. Not being able to pay for my food when I only had time to purchase it at the SU was very frustrating. That led me to spend more as I had to use my card rather than the cash I had kept. This system can also create inequalities in a way as I am sure that some students prefer paying per cash or have spared cash they cannot use. At the same time, when this cash I had kept ran low, I found myself preferring this way.
Whether you call it “girl math” or a placebo effect, not physically spending my money made me believe I was actually sparing it.
This assumption, or belief has also been called “The pain of paying ” [1] by Ofer Zellermayer. It is likely that you have experienced it yourself as his theory shows. That lead me to wonder if the suppression of cash payments could be strategic: if people feel as if they spend less with non-physical payments, they will spend more. But whether this choice was purposefully taken or not, the effect in my opinion is that we spend more this way.
I have asked my peers how they felt about this system and the general answer was that they did not really mind it. Most of them even thought it was practical and faster.
Another crucial point of view regarding this matter is the staff’s one. While discussing with the staff of the SU, I have learned that they did not feel like cashless machines made their physical presence unnecessary. Even if the machines are cashless, they can offer their help and advice. They also told me they actually felt safer not bearing cash on them and felt it was the easiest way for students. Although one member of the staff told me that they do love being able to have interactions but felt that maybe the Spar at the SU was not the place where students looked for that too.
I am a strong believer in human contact, and even if that may sound simple to some of you, I do enjoy a warm smile, a quick chat or just simply someone helping me out without me having to ask for it. That is another reason why I do think that paying per cash at the SU could be a more positive and shifting change than it might appear to be. I do believe that this system enhances as well our dependency on our phones as many of us pay with them.
Moreover, it could let us take the time to realise and gain consciousness of the actions we are doing. By automatically handing our phone or our card to pay, do we really take the time to wonder: do I actually need to buy this, do I actually want this? I believe that by making these ways of paying a habit, we can tend to lose the ability to make sense out of our actions.
To put it in a nutshell, I think that even though the cashless cash registers at the Student’s Union are practical, it should be something we question. Whether it is because in itself it prevents people only bearing cash to pay, or because it might reduce human contact or expand our phone dependency or expenses; this is not meaningless.
If this piece leaves you with anything, I hope it is a small reminder to smile and exchange a few words with the people behind the counter, whether it is at the SU or anyplace you feel like it. And maybe to question your surroundings and your habits, even the ones that appear harmless.
References
[1] Zellermayer, Ofer (1996). “The pain of paying”. PhD dissertation. Carnegie Mellon University, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses (1996). Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280711796_The_Pain_of_Paying
