We go to shopping centres for more than the shops. They offer somewhere to meet, wander, sit or simply be among other people. What can these commercial spaces teach us about the places we need to feel connected?

Walk into a major Australian shopping centre shortly after it opens on a weekend and something curious is already happening.

Some are walking the corridors. Others are drinking coffee, sitting on benches or meeting friends. Teenagers are finding one another. Parents have brought their children. Older people are watching the world go by.

Some will eventually leave carrying shopping bags. Others may buy very little.

We tend to assume people go to shopping centres for an obvious reason: to shop. But what if shopping is only part of the attraction?

What if one of the things shopping centres give us isn’t something we can buy at all – the simple experience of being around other people?

Our social ties are changing

Australians are certainly still socially connected. But some patterns of face-to-face interaction have changed.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ 2025 General Social Survey found that 53 per cent of Australians aged 15 and over had face-to-face contact with family or friends outside their household at least weekly. That was an improvement on 42 per cent in 2020, during the pandemic, but remained well below the 68 per cent recorded in 2019.

Participation in organised volunteering was also lower: 23 per cent in 2025 compared with 30 per cent in 2019.

These figures do not mean Australians have swapped family gatherings, community groups or volunteering for trips to the shops. The data cannot establish that.

But they do invite a broader question: where........

© Pearls and Irritations