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A recent article in the Washington Post reported that a Pew survey on technology and the family found that the vast majority of respondents felt that new technologies had no effect on the closeness of their families, with 25% reporting that tech had improved closeness and just 11% citing a negative impact. With due respect for the Washington Post, Pew, and the 2,252 it polled, let's take a closer look at some of the reported findings.

When Social Technologies did a series of research briefs in 2006 on changing family communication, we recognized that technology is having an enormous impact on two different aspects of family communication: safety and socializing. Regarding safety, there is little doubt that new technologies have improved communication. Parents feel less anxious about their children's safety knowing that they're just a mobile phone call away.

With socialization, however, the results are more mixed. Certainly technology has yielded some benefits-chief among these, its ability to bridge distances. I love being able to share our family photo albums with my mother, who lives a thousand miles away. And compared to the one-phone-for-20-kids set up of my college dorm 30 years ago, I much prefer the ability to Skype with my college-aged daughter whenever we notice each other online.

Our briefs, however, also identified some communication problems associated with new technologies:

• "Techno-ADD." Any parent who has had to repeat themselves two or three (or more) times when trying to talk to their laptop-focused kids knows this techno-disorder.
• "Blurring boundaries." A 2005 study found that those who consistently use a mobile phone reported more "negative spillover" between work and home life-and much less satisfaction with their home lives.

According to the article, the primary benefit of new technologies was its ability to allow constant connectivity, enabling parents to contact their children anywhere and anytime and facilitating what Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet project called "love taps"--the frequent exchange of hellos or just touching base between spouses. However, as any prostitute could tell you, frequency of contact does not necessarily mean quality or intimacy of interaction.

Could it be that many Americans are fooling themselves into thinking that frequency and quality are the same thing?

Image: qwrrty (Flickr)

A recent Washington Post article on technology and the family suggested--as evidence that technology has had little negative impact on family closeness--the outbreak of a new "family phenomenon": the family huddling around a screen to watch YouTube videos together.

Give me a break.

I don't know whose living-room windows this reporter was peeking through, but it sure wasn't mine. Yes, our family does occasionally gather together around the PC or laptop to watch a video of extended family members or one that one of us has found particularly funny. But more often, multiple screens are in use at the same time: me checking emails or working (yes, working even after dinner--it's called "blurred boundaries"), my wife watching network or cable TV, my son watching YouTube or playing a videogame on his laptop, and my daughter on Facebook.

Now, I like to think of my family as very close-knit. We pride ourselves, for example, on sharing a family dinner every night--although not everyone is there every night. But it certainly isn't video technology that has brought us together. When I was a kid, I remember my dad, my mom, and all of us kids sitting down in the family room on Saturday night to watch All in the Family, Mary Tyler Moore, and The Bob Newhart Show together. Today, the sheer multiplicity of screen options has sharply curtailed that kind of regular, communal viewing experience.

Image: Jerine (Flickr)

Reporter David Villano tackled a tough topic in an article for Miller-McCune magazine, "The Future of Less: How the government can help curb America's seemingly endless appetite for more."

He interviewed Social Technologies' senior futurist Andy Hines about the reality of Americans being willing to sign up for the "less is more club."

"Conscripts of the work-and-spend-less army--more popularly termed the Voluntary Simplicity Movement--may seem likely to appear within blue state pockets of aging hippies but in reality are more likely to arrive from the ranks of the uber-indulged Generation Y crowd," Hines explained. "For them, raised with plenty of security, money is not the key. They want a cool job with interesting people, and they want to be doing something that will make a difference in the world. They collect experiences, not material possessions. And yes, for them, choosing a less-demanding, less-consumptive lifestyle is not unthinkable." 

Image: Wm Jas (Flickr)

After his chart on the Speed of Change Index was published in the July / August issue of Foreign Policy magazine, Forbes magazine reporter Matthew Swibel picked up on story for his piece on "The World's Fastest Changing Markets."

"Where in the world is life changing the fastest?" he asked in his July 16 article. "That's what Social Technologies, a Washington DC consulting firm tries to measure in its new Speed of Change Index. The index features changes in urbanization, literacy, civil liberties, gross domestic product per capita and access to a telephone, TV and the Internet in the past 10 to 15 years, compared with present day."

Josh Calder explained in the article: "It's a measure of fundamental change in people's lives. It is not about the smaller shifts in the lives of the world's wealthy consumers--transitioning from a regular cell phone to a smart phone. That is nothing like the seismic shift of going from having to take a bus across Kinshasa [in Congo] to having to a cheap mobile in your hand."

Learn more about the Speed of Change Index here.

How fast is life changing for consumers around the world?

That's the focus of Social Technologies' Speed of Change Index, which was recently featured in Foreign Policy and Forbes.

More information on the index and our methodology can now be found on our website.

Locavore--a moniker for those who prefer to eat food that is grown locally--is a term that seems to be gaining traction. Personally, I've been enjoying the herbs and tomatoes my mother grows in her backyard for years, but until recently it always brought expressions of disbelief from friends and visitors. After all, why revert to the activities of serfs and peasants when we've got Whole Foods to supply us with fresh organic produce? A number of factors, including higher gas prices and concerns about the environmental impact of food that travels cross-country from farm to fork, have made some eager to substitute home gardening for trips to the grocery store.

What happens, though, when you want to be a locavore but can't actually commit to growing your own garden? Now, even those "lazy locavores" with no time for gardening can eat food from their own estate, thanks to entrepreneurs like Trevor Paque, who will plant and maintain your own personal organic vegetable and herb garden right in your backyard.

"Want your shot at videogame fame?" asks Pioneer Press reporter Julio Ojeda-Zapata in a May 17 article entitled "Gamers of the World, Unite -- and take the stage for a night." "You don't have to be a hardcore 'Halo III' or 'World of Warcraft' wunderkind anymore. Average gamers can now aspire to stardom, too," he writes.

Ojeda-Zapata interviewed Social Technologies' Matthew Sollenberger about the fact that videogaming has recently been transformed by "casual" gaming options:

"[These are] typified by the family-friendly Wii along with music titles like 'Guitar Hero' and 'Rock Band' that nearly anyone could pick up and play. This means the latest videogame tournaments have grown less elitist and more accessible to players of all ages and skill levels."

Sollenberger explains: 

"It's an easy way to hang out and meet people in the same way people play pub trivia or join kickball leagues," said analyst Matthew Sollenberger, of the Washington, D.C.-based Social Technologies research and consulting company. The Wii and its ilk are "a social lubricant."

Read the entire article.

Image: MNgilen (Flickr)

"Television today is in a state of flux," writes TelevisionWeek correspondent Allison J. Waldman in the May 11 issue of the magazine. "New technologies, multiple platforms, decreasing audience share for the major networks, emerging digital interactivity--how will the industry adapt to the changes and make them television viable and thriving in the decade ahead?"

For a glimpse of the future, Walden interviewed Social Technologies' futurist Christopher Kent. Here's a bit of what he had to say:

TelevisionWeek: Where is TV going to be in the next 15 years?

Christopher Kent: Your question of where really hits on it, because the really big thing in the next 15 years is going to be moving away from the traditional television set itself, with programming being in a number of different places. We're already starting to see this a bit today with iPods and Apple TV, but the emergence of mobile TV on any number of platforms--be it your phone, a media player, even in your car--the where is the big thing with mobile standards now being finalized. It was in Europe last year, and the U.S. is still working on it. The future of television is going to be mobile. It's going to be less sitting in front of the TV and more taking your TV with you.

Read the entire article.

Image: (c) 2008 JupiterImages Corp.

Global food prices have jumped an attention-grabbing 83% in the last three years and  food riots have broken out in multiple countries in the last few weeks. Bad weather, ethanol policies, and dwindling reserves can take some of the blame.

Will this apply the brakes to foodie culture? Much as I am comfortable speaking the occasionally overwrought language of gourmet land, recent news items give me pause. A carriage-trade kitchen designer is selling $185,000 marble-fitted show places. Food & Wine featured an attorney's "dream kitchen," where he'd installed chef-level tools, including his very own thermal circulator (a favorite toy of the molecular gastronomist).  Time taste-tested a $182 bottle of olive oil, reporting a 17% increase in gourmet food sales over the last two years.

The great majority of us who like to dabble with the occasional luxury ingredient or obsessively combine beef suet with butter for their pie crust (it works, trust me) are hardly on this plain. But, essentially, playing with your food at the level described above feels somehow an impropriety in the face of what could be starvation for swaths of World 3. And, as costs rise, the ingredients for "Ancient Roman Duck" may get so steep that the foodie challenge may instead be to put together the most intriguing dish for the least amount of money. Did you know kudzu can be made into a rather nice salad? And those dandelions that have taken over the back lawn are looking particularly fresh this morning...

 Image: littledan77 (Flickr)

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iParenting.com reporter Kelly Burgess recently interviewed Social Technologies' Andy Hines about the study he conducted for MTV on the future of youth happiness. She wrote:

 When asked what they want for their children's futures, parents often say, "I just want my child to be happy." Noble words, but beyond wanting our children to be happy, what do we do to help them find their way to happiness? Happiness is a difficult concept to define.

A study called Future of Youth Happiness: What Makes 12- to 24-Year-Olds Happy? may help both teens and parents define and set goals. The study was commissioned by MTV and the Associated Press and conducted by the research firm Social Technologies. Surveying a total of 1,200 12- to 24-year-olds from a variety of socioeconomic and racial backgrounds, the goal was to determine if teens are happy, what makes them happy and what they are doing to ensure future happiness.

Andy Hines, director of custom projects for Social Technologies, says they discovered that teens pursue happiness with three goals in mind: the pleasure of the moment, relationships with family and friends and the long-term search for meaning and purpose - in other words, friends, family and faith.

Read the entire article.

"Multitasking has long been a badge of honor for the digitally well-armed," writes Gloria Goodale in a recent Christian Science Monitor article, "Mastering the high-tech tools that help us."

She goes on to suggest that there is a price to pay for spreading oneself too thin, and asked Social Technologies futurist Simeon Spearman to offer his thoughts on the topic.

Both computers and humans really only process one thing at a time, Spearman said. The machines do this so quickly, in parallel process, that they appear to be multitasking. But they are able to process far more information than humans -- and are more capable with each jump in computer speed.

When you see the demands we put on computers these days and how much they can process, you begin to understand just how much we're being hit by all the time.

Read the entire article.

Image: Michael Verdi (flickr)

Following the lead of pared-down, budget airline services like Jet Blue and EasyJet, a new budget hotel model is emerging. The 'pod hotel' offers tiny rooms for rent by the hour or night. Typically, pod rooms measure fewer than one hundred square feet and either a commuter-train-sized restroom or a shared, standard bath.

The pod trend emerged from Japan where weary  businessmen stranded in a city overnight have rented inexpensive sleeping cubicles. Most Western pod hotels are more luxurious than the windowless Japanese cubicle style. No-frills European EasyHotels, owned by EasyJet, are probably the next step up. In the middle of the pod spectrum--such as the Pod Hotel in midtown Manhattan--all rooms have windows, flat-screen TVs, an iPod deck, and free Wi-fi. At the height of pod luxury, the soon-to-open citizenM hotel at Amsterdam's Schipol Airport will feature designer linens and furniture and king-sized beds. Other pod hotels like the Qbic Hotel and Yotel feature mood lighting and even room service!

While no-frills pods can rent for as little as $35 a night, fancier ones like the new citizenM will start at over $100 per night. Although targeted at business travelers requiring a quick nap or young backpackers, pod hotel clientele hail from all walks of life.

Though pod hotels seem natural for Europeans accustomed to smaller quarters, the future of pods in the US is still being debated, according to the Wall Street Journal:

Some European-based operators who've opened pod-style hotels in the past year or two say they plan to expand stateside soon. But many in the U.S. hotel industry remain skeptical that the trend will spread beyond the novelty. 'The question of customer acceptance still needs to be answered,' says Jan Freitag, a vice-president with Smith Travel Research. For business travelers, the idea of being able to get some work done in the privacy of a hotel room is an important selling point, which can be a problem in a small-scale pod. And most vacationers, he says, want to be able to spend some time in their rooms relaxing.

Can the lure of low prices draw Americans from spacious hotel rooms? And, assuming that it takes less energy to power and clean and maintain a pod-sized room, will eco-conscious Americans take notice of 'pods' as well?

Image: Rain Rannu (Flickr)

Will the White Sox win the World Series before the Chicago Cubs do? That was a question Chicago Tribune reporter David Haugh posted to Social Technologies' analyst Kevin Osborn for an article entitled "20th Century gone, but 21st wide open for Cubs".

"I'd say every team, with the possible exception of the Royals, Pirates, Rangers and Rays, will win the World Series before 2108," Osborn told Haugh.

How does he know? Osborn's comments are based on research he conducted for a brief on the "The Future of American Spectator Sports."

He forecasts that in the next decade TV ratings for the three most popular professional sports—football, baseball, and basketball—will likely decline but American sports fans will make use of other media to access events, news, and scores.

“The three major sports sell more than 120 million tickets a year,” Osborn explains. “Throw in college football and basketball, and you add another 80 million spectators. Every Super Bowl Sunday, just under half of all American TV sets are tuned into the game. NASCAR, a rising star on the sports scene, claims to have 75 million fans. The numbers are staggering, and as technological advances allow fans instant access to their favorite sports, anywhere anytime, the audience could grow even bigger.”

Following is a sampling of some of the other sports-related trends that Osborn foresees:

Click to Read More ...

A recent New York Times article posed the question: is a sightseeing trip to a slum tourism, or voyeurism?

Reality tourism--travel that is intended to immerse the traveler in authentic, non-tourist experiences--now includes guided tours through slums in destinations like India, Kenya, Mexico, and Brazil.

The trend has its opponents--critics of the slum visit tourism call it "poorism," and argue that it is exploitative and voyeuristic. However, advocates of the slum visits claim that these tours raise awareness--tourists will come away wanting to help, and with a better understanding of how to do so. Some organizers of slum tours cite a responsibility to give back to the community; one guide has built a community center and pledged 80% of his profits to the Brazilian favela where he operates.

The visits can offer opportunities. The New York Times said:

"At first, the tourists were besieged by beggars, but not anymore," said Kevin Outterson, a law professor from Boston who has taken several favela tours. Mr. Fantozzi has taught people, Mr. Outterson said, "that you're not going to get anything from my people by begging, but if you make something, people are going to buy it."

This is an interesting new twist. Reality tourism, done right, could allow the poorest direct access to wealthy tourists while at the same time granting tourists the authentic experiences they crave.

Image: Alicia Nijdam (Flickr)

In a March 24 MSNBC article about danger tourism, and the line between being adventurous vs. taking stupid risks while traveling, Social Technologies' Josh Calder offered these comments to reporter Christopher Elliott:

"Many people are seeking authentic experiences,” explains Josh Calder, an analyst with Social Technologies, a Washington consulting firm. “And real danger delivers. Most thrill-seekers settle for simulated dangers such as bungee jumping, but there is a small minority that want actual peril.”

Calder ought to know. He recently went gorilla trekking near the Rwandan border, in a place where rebels killed tourists just a few years ago. But he took precautions, including bringing along guards armed with automatic rifles.

Read the entire article.

Image: FutureAtlas.com

As part of our Technology Foresight program, Social Technologies conducted a virtual, global focus group of experts in technology, innovation, and business strategy to determine the top 12 areas for technology innovation through 2025. Personalized medicine is the first innovation area in the series.

Personalized medicine: "one drug for all" to "one drug per case" 

Personalized medicine includes the use of gene therapy, pharmacology and information technology to treat each patient individually. The ultimate goal of personalized medicine is the use of a person’s genome to move medicine from a reactive to a preventive stance, fixing a potential problem before it occurs rather than after it manifests. Changes in the medical and healthcare sector will give consumers more information about the interplay of disease and their own genomes, providing them the opportunity to take greater control of their healthcare and enable treatments tailored to specific genomes, which will thereby move medicine from “one drug for all” to “one drug per case.”

Click to Read More ...

A recent article in the New York Times profiled Randy Newsom, an enterprising young minor-league relief pitcher who came up with an innovative scheme to supplement his low income (about $8,000 for five months) as a bush leaguer: Twenty bucks would get you one of 2500 shares worth 0.002% of his career earnings. Newsom had sold 1800 shares before the SEC shut down his website in January. (Newsom had shortsightedly failed to register his website offering with the SEC.) After refunding the money he raised to his investors, Newsom plans to reintroduce the venture in accordance with regulations.

Such an investment--motivated as much by fandom as finance--is an extreme longshot to pay off (with $2 million in career earnings as the break-even point--and 90% of minor leaguers never making it to the majors). As fellow minor-league pitcher Jon Searles, who earned an economics degree from Wharton, notes:

Don’t get me wrong — $50,000 can be everything to a player in the minor leagues. But the risk of them committing 5 percent in perpetuity for a quick $50,000, there’s a break-even point where only players who aren’t characterized as prospects might do it. And rational investors will assess those percentages.

Although Newsom was forced to shut down his operation, I wondered whether this minor league entrepreneur might have unwittingly come up with the solution to the rapidly rising cost of a college education. Next fall, my oldest daughter will be entering college. Given the elite liberal-arts colleges to which she has applied, we anticipate that--without financial aid--the cost of her four years at college will be in the range of $180 to $200 thousand. And we have three other kids!

So, tongue planted firmly in cheek, here's the deal: If my daughter sells shares of her future earnings for a fair price (say, $90 for 0.005%), she could easily raise enough funds to make college much more affordable.

Click to Read More ...

Love's yearnings may be eternal, but how we act on them keeps changing. The future promises new ways to connect with that special someone--and we are likely to try every technology that comes to hand in this timeless pursuit. In honor of the holiday, my colleagues here at Social Technologies offer these 10 forecasts for love:

1. Location-based dating--GPS plus dating services plus mobile phones means love may be just around the corner. Combining services such as the massively popular Adultfriendfinder.com family of sites--which includes channels directed at everyone from seniors to Filipinos--with mobiles will allow users to be alerted when someone who matches their profile is within kissing distance.
2. The new infidelity--Or is it? When it comes to playing around in virtual worlds, society will work out the rules couple by couple for what constitutes acceptable behavior for a spouse or partner. What kinds of intimacy cross the line? Is it cheating if you develop a crush on a really cute orc in World of Warcraft?
3. Together apart--For partners who really can't stand separation, new systems will signal what one's beloved is up to and what kind of mood he is in. Maps could update in real time to show changing location. Smart systems could convey emotional states based on the changing color of an orb on your desk or the actions of a robotic pet.
4. Virtual therapy--Virtual spaces will increasingly be used for therapeutic treatment of people with relationship and sexual issues. They can provide a low-risk zone for patients to work out problems; for instance, people who are uncomfortable with the opposite sex could use online simulations to build their confidence, perhaps in dedicated therapeutic spaces.
5. Scientific pairings--Relationship matching systems such as those being used by some dating sites will go to the next level: a real, scientific compatibility test between potential mates administered before the courtship even begins. Genetic tests will be applied--and perhaps even more often misapplied--to identify the ideal mate.
6. Remote intimacy--Telerobotics will enable couples to have moments of intimacy via robots they control from another city, or the far side of the planet.
7. Love potions--Science will illuminate the reality behind "chemistry," and enable its manipulation. The role of pheromones and even genetics in attraction will be increasingly clear. Someday, an unscrupulous lothario might be able to target his intended with a customized biochemical brew made specifically to attract her.
8. Pleasure bots--Sex is  an inevitable application of robotics. Artificially intelligent personal pleasure devices for women are already on the market. Technological improvements will be added to today's rudimentary sex dolls as fast as affordability allows.
9. Brain sex--Why not cut out the "middle man"--the body? A lot of sex occurs in the brain, and future neurodevices may make it possible to induce a variety of experiences at will. A whole new level of remote or virtual interactions would be possible.
10. People will be people--Many people will ignore the previous nine developments and keep doing things just has we've done them for that last 100,000 years or so. With nearly 7 billion of us, and counting, the system seems to be working pretty well.

Image: Sister72 (Flickr)

Your friends seem to have everything, or are steering clear of accumulating more "stuff," so what do you buy them this holiday season?

In a December 14 article for The Washington Post Express, reporter Kris Coronado suggested Washingtonians tap into a new trend of buying experiential gifts. "Whether it's climbing Machu Picchu or an IOU for a trip to the zoo, gifts one does instead of throws in the back of a closet are becoming a favorite option of buyers," she wrote in her article, "Experiential Gifts Create a Can-Do Spirit".

For insight into the trend, Coronado turned to Social Technologies' Director of Programs Chris Carbone:

The last five years have seen a definite shift toward such gifts, says Chris Carbone of Social Technologies, a D.C.-based firm that tracks consumer trends. "We have enough spin in politics and in reality TV shows that turn out to be staged," he explains. "In our own lives, we're looking for something more real and genuine. Experiences are as real as it gets."

What are some of the best picks? Coronado suggested a handful of ideas, including steel drum lessons, home hennas, and zipline tours.

What do you think? Post your comments about some of the best experiential gifts you are giving this holiday season.

Image: welsh boy (Flickr)