Several threads have discussed the increased use of of the trolley work by Witnesses in various countries (e.g, Australia, New Zealand, the States, Canada and Britain to name a few). Several posters have described trolley settings as largely ignored by passersby and/or the Witnesses immersed in everything other than appearing ready and waiting to make contact with passersby.
What impact will this increased shift to trolley work have on the hallmark feature of JWs, their door-to-door work? Anecdotal evidence indicates that the frequency and intensity of door-to-door work has dropped off in the past ten or so years. Witnesses in the west don't seem to cover the territory as frequently or intensely as they did in more recent decades like the 1980s and 1990s. We never see them out in the numbers that were visibly active in those earlier decades. Never.
Now with the shift to the trolley work, will the willingness to do door-to-door work reduce even further? And does the GB even care or have they accepted that getting Witnesses to engage n the hallmark activity is a bit like flogging a dead horse?
For watchers of the organisation, these are interesting times. As the membership lugs each trolley to a seemingly more public place and plonks themselves down on comfy seats thumbing self-absorbably through their iphones, I'll venture there will be even less space for the demands of door-to-door work ... and the image of doorknocking will be as consigned to memory as is the notion of a JW who can hold their own in a theocratic exchange with an intelligent interested person.