Have you noticed the #booktok hashtag getting young people to read again? Or have you seen new classes offered at your gym that teach you how to do nothing? Or maybe you’ve noticed that lots of your friends suddenly have side hustles to make a bit of extra cash? And, what in the world does ‘skibidi rizz’ mean?
All of these have something in common – they are trend signals, telling us something about the future of our society.
We recently attended two Futures Friends meetups in Amsterdam and London where we listened to trend watchers share the signals they find the most exciting, curious and concerning. Afterwards, we discussed and speculated about what these say about our current values, needs and desires as a society.
Since they all shared their favourite trend signals, we thought we should share some we’ve noticed, too:
- In the hyperconnected world of smartphones, there seems to be growing pushback of this norm, as people crave simpler, non-connected spaces, devices and experiences to ‘sign off’ for a bit. The Light Phone is a perfect example of this craving, followed by the new Boring Phone concept and the recently created (and hugely popular) Offline Club meetups in the Netherlands. This has even led to the term ‘digital detox’ having its own Wikipedia page.
- AI-enabled devices may be our answer to screen addiction. Products like the Rabbit R1 and the AI Pin show us how the power of language language and action models, run on voice command, hand gestures or a simple scroll wheel can complete the tasks we need and keep us connected with friends and family without relying on stealing and selling out attention through a rectangular screen.
- Whether it stems from sustainability reasons, a desire to be handy or a need to understand how your belongings were made, the popularity of fixing things yourself is growing. Think, for example, about the rise of repair cafes around the world, the business proposition behind Fairphone or the new Nokia and iFixit collaboration offering replaceable parts and toolkits for customers to fix their phone themselves.
Katy, Ed, Paulien