Lifestyle trends have dramatically shifted over the past 50 years with more women in the workplace. Families are a lot busier these days then previously due to both parents working, continuing their education, and caring for and raising a family. Therefore most families have chosen trends like fast food eating, internet shopping and more personal pampering. First we look at fast food meals. The average women is now putting in a full eight hour plus work day and then to come home to run children to after school activities while trying to squeeze in dinner. The easy choice is to run thru the drive-thru to pick up supper and eat in the car while driving to the next stop. Due to the fact "that the way people work these days -- many out of their homes, many with different schedules -- the traditional 9-to-5 day has morphed into a 12-noon-to-midnight day," Cebrzynski says. There are also a lot of single parent homes that tend to lead to the fast food chains as well because now the use of one parent staying behind to have supper ready for the rest of the family that is on the run they have to handle the daily routine by themselves leading them to the appealing fast food, no clean up trend. The fast food trend not only affects families with both parents working or single parents but also students. Many students go to school during the day and then have to work in the evening leading to more late night fast food stops. The fast food restaurants have used a great marketing strategy to get that late night business but not have to keep up the cost of all the employees throughout the night by making it easy for these students to make that late night stop as they offer the drive-thru option that stays open late. According to ADA spokeswoman Amy Jamieson-Petonic, RD. "many attend class during the day, work an evening job, and pick up fast food when they clock out. "They're looking for something fast and inexpensive, and I'm not always sure that nutrition is on the forefront of their minds"1 Marketing the fast food chains have really indulged in the TV advertisements and billboards to persuade the family on the run to catch that local drive-through restaurant. Another top trend in the United States is the use of internet shopping. The use of the online era continues to grow as technology grows along with the growing number of single-parent and dual working families. After a long days work and running their children to their sporting events or practices parents have less time to do the shopping especially when it comes to the extra shopping like gifts for a birthday party or wedding that parents turn the internet. Shop, pay, and receive the item right in the comforts of your home all while saving time to run to the store and fighting the kids to act appropriately and saying no to all the items they think they need. According to the book for this class, Amazon was on of the first online shopping websites that "continues to experience double-digit growth every year." Not only do consumers use the internet to save them time and hassle but they also use the internet to find the least expensive items. "Just like department stores, we can shop around and learn which ones we like to visit and make purchases at the most. We can easily search for the best deals across the world and get those items for less than expected." "In today's society, time is a precious commodity. Convenience and ease are major contributing factors driving the way consumers make decisions about where to shop. A recent report, carried out by the British Council of Shopping Centers, discovered that while many British adults expect to spend 40 hours doing Christmas shopping, they could do the same chores online in just 10 hours. By 2015, it’s forecast that online sales will account for 11% of total retail spend, and in some sectors such as music and video, Internet spending will be almost 50% of total retail spend by 2015. Another growing trend in the United States is the personal pampering trend. More people then ever have been using the personal pampering services such as a spa to have a manicure, pedicure, and/or a massage. As I look around just the small town I live in, we have at least six stores that offer all of these services and I know there has to be more of these but these are just the places that have official stores and are not out of their homes. When I moved to this town about 25 years ago there were no stores like these around. I feel that as people work longer hours and run children around their lives have become more stressful and a way to relief some of this stress is thru massage therapy. "Massage therapy has become a very popular means to relieve stress and help relax the body. Because of this, it is widely performed on many people everyday. The medical industry also recognizes that it has many healing benefits for a wide variety of health conditions, and is a great way to restore overall physical and mental well being." I feel that the United States needs more regulations when it comes to marketing. The main reason I say more is due to the fact that now that we have the internet and cable television it is very easy for a child to stumble upon a site or channel that they should not be viewing. I am very glad for parental controls but even then this doesn't always help with the internet access or television channels as it is accessible from many places these days and parents are not able to protect their child from these types of sites everywhere they go. We may have the regulations in place to try to protect them but I don't feel they are enough. For an example, at my workplace I use the internet to look up our customer and our warehouse websites to view product information. These are the only sites I look at yet somehow I have received emails from sites that are not suitable for children nor at a workplace. These emails somehow were able to get past the firewall that the company has in place. This just shows that it is so much easier for these types of emails or cites to pop up on your computer that has no firewall at home that your children could accidently stumble upon. It is scary to think that I wasn't even trying to get onto a site that was even close to the topic that popped up in the subject line of that email and to think this could happen just as easily to my child and being innocent as they are they wouldn't think much of it and would probably open the email vs. deleting it like I did. These types of emails besides not being suitable for children can lead to viruses on your computer as well and we all know how messy that can get therefore more needs to be done to prevent these types of accidental occurrences. Technology has really been a great thing for marketing as it has allowed companies to reach a greater number of consumers than they normally would if the internet didn't exist. Technology today has allowed companies to sell products to consumers all over the world not just in the nearby area as it once was. Technology can also save you money were at one time we sent thousands of letters through the mail costing much more than just sending them electronically for nearly pennies. Participating in online discussion lists and message boards can allow you to network with a large group of people in your target market without leaving your home or office. Appearing on live chats or webinars permits you to be a public speaker without the time and expense of travel, and speak to national or global audiences. It has also helped marketing get more creative with all the tools that are available to us. Technology has also helped with the customer interface as the consumer can rely on that 24/7 service, support, and information. The convenience to the customer is critical and this allows the response time much quicker and more accurate. This is key due to the global economy we now live in. While we are sleeping our customers could be right in the middle of their day and are able to get contact at anytime not just the hour before they leave which is the first hour of our day. Companies are able to create portfolios that are at the customers fingertips at anytime of the day also allowing for customers to get information at anytime convenient to them. Technology will no doubt continue to grow and allow companies to market in much more creative ways reaching customers at a push of a button at anytime, anywhere.