Before I say anything, watch this.
I had one of those unforgettable learning moments about 2 years ago when Alex Bogusky talked about The Nine Gorillas. They were the major trends affecting our lives that were right in front of us, but we didn't truly see them or appreciate their impact. I learned from the Gorillas, and also the power of the obvious. Making sure we don't miss the movements of the tectonic plates as we focus on the pressure and rubble along the fault lines.
I hadn't seen such clearly articulated ideas until I read the March 12 issue of TIME magazine: 10 Ideas That Are Changing Your Life. For those who didn't see it, I created a Cliff's Notes of excerpts and paraphrasing here. Thank you, TIME. Important, human insights for those trying to create relationships, serve, and design for people. There is also an optimism about them that I love.
1. Living Alone is the New Norm
The extraordinary rise of solitary living is the biggest social change that we've neglected to identify, let alone examine. In 1950, 4 million Americans lived alone and made up only 9% of US households. By 2011, nearly 33 million Americans live alone making up 28% of all US households. The percentage of households increases as you look internationally to Sweden 47%, Japan 31%, and Britain 34%. According to sociologist Eric Klinenberg, living alone helps us pursue sacred modern values -- individual freedom, personal control and self-realization which are trumping economics. Solitary dwellers are primarily women, with the majority in the US being middle-aged adults from 35-64. In recent decades, young adults from 18 to 34 have been the fastest growing segment of the singleton populations. Fascinating, there is little evidence that the rise of living alone is making Americans more lonely. Living alone provides an opportunity to turn off and be better selves when we reconnect.
2. Your Head is In the Cloud
Research conducted by Betsy Sparrow at Columbia has identified three new realities for how we process information in the Internet age. 1) When we don't know the answer to a question, we now think about where we can find the nearest Web connection instead of the subject of the question itself. 2) When we expect to be able to find information later on, we don't remember it as well as when we think it might become unavailable (eg if it is saved or unsaved; favorited or just part of a flow on a twitter stream). 3) The expectation that we'll be able to locate information down the line leads us to form memory not about the fact itself but where we'll be able to find it. We are becoming symbiotic with our computer tools. People have long done with "transactive memory" with other people. Now it is happening on a larger scale with machines. Why does this matter? Children need a level of factual knowledge to precede skill. But even for adults, it is fascinating how we are processing and remembering information. Each day the average American spends about 12 hours consuming information, taking in more than 100,000 words that total 34 gigabytes of data.
3. Hand Prints, Not Footprints
We leave positive as well as negative imprints on the planet and that positive psychology is important for action. Daniel Goleman bought a bag of chips with 14 g of fat and 75 g of carbon released into the atmosphere to make, transport and recycle them. It was depressing. A more encouraging way to think about our impact is handprints: the sum of all the reductions we make in our carbon footprints (a common way of referring to the negative trail we leave on the planet). This is the brainchild of Gregory Norris, a lecturer of the Harvard School of Public Health, after discovering that once his students learned how to calculate carbon footprints, they said the planet would be better off if they had never been born. Elke Weber, a cognitive scientist at Columbia says when folks do things to harm the planet they feel bad and want to do something to make themselves feel better -- which causes them to tune out. But if there is a positive, manageable goal in mind, we feel good and are more likely to keep going.
4. The Rise of the Nones
The number of people who say they have no religious affiliation -- called "nones" by some -- has more than doubled in the US since 1990 to 16% of the population. "For the most part, they're not rejecting God. They're rejecting organized religion as being rigid and dogmatic," according to Erin Dunigan an ordained Presbyterian at the Not Church. There is a strong American trend: turning away from organized religion and yet seeking rich if unorthodox ways to build spiritual lives. The fastest growing religious group in the US is the category of people who say they have no religious affiliation, yet many have not given up on faith. Only 4% of Americans identify as atheist or agnostic. The hunger for spiritual connection and community hasn't gone away.
5. Food That Lasts Forever
Without new and more sophisticated methods of food preservation, we could fall short of feeding a global population expected to top 7 billion this year. According to John Floros of Penn State, "We're not just talking about long-term space missions. We're talking about survival here on earth."
6. Black Irony
"Black irony is about people using blackness as a text to comment on and perhaps critique or reconfigure it. It's about challenging and rejecting the notion of hegemonic blackness. It's about the relationship many blacks have with our past. Black history is filled with pain. Black irony admits that but seeks to reclaim the emotional response to those painful images and gain power over them, " Toure.
7. High Status Stress
As you near the top, life stress increases so dramatically that its toxic effects essentially cancel out many positive aspects of succeeding--professionally, socially and economically. However, some socialists believe that hard driven, work devoted people will likely get habituated to an all-demanding professional culture and having no memories of a time when work generally stayed at the office. They will be desensitized.
8. Privacy in Public
There is now a legal right to privacy in public spaces for the first time in American history, thanks to a recent Supreme Court decision. It involves GPS tracking of suspected drug dealers and unreasonable search and seizure without a warrant. This is a very specific case, but it is a harbinger of discussions and legislation to come about the use of GPS data and cell phone history. It is clear that what privacy is and Americans expectations of it will be hotly debated and redefined as governments try to monitor and companies try to monetize vast amounts of personal data never before available.
9. Nature is Over
Little of nature is left untouched by humans -- and that demands a rethink of environmentalism. Humans have had a direct impact on more than three-quarters of the ice-free land on earth. Almost 90% of plant activity takes place in ecosystems where people have played a significant role. According to Nobel-winning chemist Paul Crutzen, "It's no longer us against 'Nature.' Instead, it's we who decide what nature is and what it will be." And we're not very good at it yet. He refers to this phenomenon as Anthropocene. Nearly 1/5 of vertebrate species are threatened. Conservationists may be winning the battle for nature preserves and losing the war for wildlife.
10. Niche Aging
As 78 million baby boomers approach their sunset years, the generic retirement model is giving way to what developers call affinity housing -- niche communities where retirees can grow old along side others who share their specific interests. These affinities range from country music, Asian cultural immersion, and sexual orientation. There are already 100 such communities in the United States. Many more are expected as developers drive the shift trying to attract the boomers who control 70% of US wealth. Also evolving are the attitudes toward retirement and the desire to remain active as long as possible.
Special recognition to the authors, in order: Eric Klinenberg, Annie Murphy Paul, Daniel Goleman, Amy Sullivan, Deborah Blum, Toure, Judith Warner, Massimo Calabresi, Bryan Walsh, Harriet Barovick.
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