Trend #9 – Hunger for shared experiences.

How’s this for timing. Yesterday I wrote about fear fatigue. I thought this was really a UK trend but today there’s an article in the Sydney Morning Herald with a headline “How We Lost the Fear of Terror” by Daniel Flitton.

OK, enough of that. Trend number 9…

We are spending more time alone, either because we live/work alone or because everyday life increasingly involves a degree of automation, digitalisation and virtualisation, all of which can reduce physical human contact.

For example, there is now less need to interact with ticketing staff at airports. Once you are on onboard there is also little chance of a real conversation because you are confronted with a seat-back with a screen the moment you sit down, or because the person next to you is on the phone*

Similarly, some companies are experimenting with customer service avatars, so in the future you won’t even be able to have a real conversation with a nice man from Mumbai.  And even if you do come into contact with other people many of them do not wish to connect with you. This might be because they are in a hurry to get somewhere else or because there is a digital device, such as a mobile phone or iPod, in between you and them.

Examples of shared experiences? Live music is a very good example. We are downloading music files, movies and now books but all these can be strangely sterile experiences.Perhaps this is why live music festivals, cinema going, theatre going, book clubs and writer’s festivals are all booming.

Predictions: Expect a shift whereby people celebrate participation and the communality of experience above and beyond idiosyncratic expression. Also expect a continued boom in father/son camping trips and communal tables in fast-food joints and top-end restaurants.We might also see shops attempting (probably unsuccessfully) to ban mobile phone use in stores, especially at service counters and in check-out isles. BTW, this is a counter-trend to digitalisation, which is a much stronger trend. Do not expect this to replace digitalisation or virtualisation. It will simply sit alongside both.
Links: Presence (the opposite of telepresence)

* Use of mobile phones is now allowed on British Airways flights between London City Airport and JFK and on some Malaysia Airlines and Emirates Airlines flights

Photo credit: Jonathan Sands (I think?)