Amazon.com, Inc. was founded by Jeff Bezos in 1994, the year I was born, making Amazon and me, as it is commonly known, just about the same age.
With the rapid technological and social advancements of the past 22 years, Amazon has emerged from a mere e-commerce corporation to a revolutionizing force in worldwide consumption, and Generation Y, or Millennials like myself, have grown up in a transformed, global consumer culture.
Let’s think about consumption – not only what we buy, but what we see, hear, read, and even what we ingest.
IMDb.com, Alexa.com, Audible.com, Kindle, and Whole Foods Market are only some of Amazon’s many acquisitions and products that give Amazon a firm grasp on the major fields of consumption and have made the e-commerce company a dominant force in our daily lives, as modern-day consumers.
Yet, though part of a global consumer culture, we are not simply passive consumers. Thinking about “consumption” from an opposite perspective, it can also be thought of as “input.” As human beings, we also possess the will and the possibility to turn the ever-increasing myriad of input we receive into output, to capitalize upon it, and to share it with others.
On September 11, the NPO JaNet, along with the NY Hitohatakai, will host an Amazon study session as part of our Executive Seminar series (This event will be conducted in Japanese only.).
by Joanna Nishimoto
