My personal for hypothesis is that meatspace will become a lot more “hip”. Meeting in person and/or personal intimate connection will be the most popular thing for younger people. In 2020, the response to COVID outbreaks pushed our workplaces to be remote and our socializing online - requiring us to adapt to our lives to keep in touch. In response, I have anecdotally noticed that outdoor activities have boomed since. I believe with the lack of authenticity and eroded trust on the internet, there will be renewed vigor to seek out thoughtful human-to-human experiences.

I personally don’t know how it will manifest at a broader scale. Maybe there will be a larger emphasis on craft and care instead of mass produced products. Maybe it will mean that we would see a revival and transformation of the third place. I hope that this will lead to a full rejection of social media, but I know that is extreme wishful thinking.

I think people will find more comfort in the analog. Film cameras, Vinyl records; its practically immutable media that laymen view as authentic.

In the technology world I am “divesting” fully from personalized algorithms and the apps that push them. I am relying on RSS feeds from a few trusted publications/blogs that I know. Discoverability is handled by recommendations from the publications or by trusted connections. I intuit that this workflow helps avoiding doomscrolling or spending time being bothered by generated, bait, slop, or “brainrot” media.

On top of this, I think FUD about “AI”/LLMs will fade into the background. I do believe that it will make workflows pretty efficient, but like novel machine learning techniques before, it will only enhance product experience where there is already a solid user story.

Maybe this document is more of a wish than a prediction, but I wanted to make my thoughts public. Happy New Year everyone.