What's Next, Now: January 2023
This month, our crystal ball predicts rising news avoidance, a make-or-break moment for air travel, a battery-fueled future, and more.
Though news engagement has been infiltrating social media platforms over the past few years, there’s also been a recent uptick in the opposite: news avoidance, according to a report by Reuters Institute. The news cycle has remained consistently heavy of late, with stories on war, a struggling economy, and illness, amongst other topics, causing many to shut it all out.
News avoidance grew over the past year, with conventional news outlets like CNN and MSNBC losing large quantities of their viewership. Social media interactions with news articles in the U.S. also fell 14% last year compared to 2021. But not all outlets are dropping viewers at the same rate — Fox News lost just 1% of prime time viewership in total for the year.
Supporting this trend, a 2022 study out of Texas Tech University reports that watching the news too often can have a negative impact on both physical and mental well-being. In addition, it’s been reported that over-consumption of disaster news can cause symptoms of PTSD in children.
Though news may be in trouble, engagement with topics such as sports, true crime, and entertainment continues to climb. This may be a sign viewers are looking for a way to escape reality and the somber news stories accompanying it. Some have referred to news avoidance as an epidemic, but it may be just what the doctor ordered. Brands should be aware that consumers may be starting to look to a weekend of shutting out the news as their new form of self-care.
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Featured in Tier One’s The Spark newsletter: As the Twitter exodus wears on, news outlets are getting creative with fresh strategies to reach their target audiences. First, a wave of Twitter competitors like Mastodon, Post, and Spill entered the fray. Now, the media is experimenting with delivering breaking news and updates directly to users in the form of push alerts, text messages, and features on their sites that mimic social media. The Verge’s redesigned homepage features Storystream, a Twitter-like feed. And Punchbowl, a U.S. Congress-focused media startup, is launching its own text-based breaking news service this month, which will provide real-time alerts to paid subscribers. To learn more, find The Spark here.
At this year’s CES, the most anticipated consumer tech event of the year, vendors showcased a number of smart home advancements that may finally bring us into our Jetsons era.
The biggest buzz going into CES was for Matter, a new open-source interoperability standard that will allow smart home devices from any manufacturer to connect and interact. Jointly developed by Apple, Google, Amazon, Samsung, and dozens of other smart home brands, Matter will make smart devices easier to set up, simpler to use, and more reliable to run. Exhibitors at the show announced a slew of Matter-compatible products, including updates to Amazon Alexa that could help pull the virtual assistant out of its slump.
This year’s CES also showed us that smart homes are about more than just color changing lights and flashy gadgets. Smart energy management, for example, could be the key to sustainably managing power in our homes and fighting against growing blackouts. Schneider Electric presented an ecosystem of smart devices that are wired directly into your home, allowing you to control and manage power, connect solar panels and electric vehicle (EV) chargers, and access backup power.
The explosion of Matter at CES highlights the growing emphasis on interoperability for technology providers. Outside of smart devices, Apple will also have to comply with new compatibility standards set by the European Union and switch from its proprietary lightning cables to universal USB-C cords by the end of 2024. For brands in other industries, there may be opportunities to join forces to optimize.
Since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, the form of transportation millions of Americans and businesses rely on to get across the country and the globe — air travel — has become increasingly unstable.
Over the last month, three years of increasing tech and mechanical issues and staffing shortages have come to a head. First, a massive winter storm during the holidays caused widespread flight cancellations across the midwest that essentially broke Southwest Airlines. This was followed in January by a technology failure at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that grounded every flight across the country for the first time since the 9/11 attacks, leading to thousands of delays and cancellations.
Despite this, the U.S.’s dependence on air travel is not expected to wane. In fact, demand is returning to the highest level seen since pre-pandemic. The federal government’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law includes billions in investments for rail and road infrastructure. But the question remains — will this be enough to support these forms of travel as a reliable Plan B for businesses with heavy air travel requirements? Or are we headed toward a future where our economic progress can be grounded along with our flights?
This most tumultuous season for air travel and alarming issues of dilapidated technology at the FAA comes as the agency’s five-year funding and authority are due for renewal by Congress this year. Ahead of this process, lobbying organizations such as the U.S. Travel Association are already calling for federal action to modernize the FAA’s technology and protect the American economy. Expect to see these issues under the microscope in Congressional hearings this year as legislators decide the future of an agency that has been without a permanent leader since last March and is said to be chronically underfunded.
2022 was the year of the battery. With the passing of the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides incentives for domestically manufactured electric vehicles and components, organizations began pouring investment into the U.S. battery sector. In 2022 alone, battery makers announced over $73 billion in planned projects — more than three times the amount invested in 2021.
The new factories have formed a growing “Battery Belt” in the southern U.S., with states like Georgia, Kentucky, Kansas, and North Carolina poised to dominate battery manufacturing in the coming years. While these facilities will mainly supply the booming EV industry, there’s also a growing market for batteries used in energy storage, both in residential homes and on the grid.
In 2023, the focus of investment will turn to materials and mining. The battery boom has spiked a massive demand for lithium and other minerals necessary for EV and battery manufacturing. New technologies such as AI are being harnessed to modernize the mining industry and funding is starting to flood in.
While batteries are getting all the hype, other, more experimental technologies are still being explored. Porsche began pilot production of synthetic e-fuel, which could replace gasoline in vehicles with traditional engines. Sustainable hydrogen and the development of hydrogen fuel cells is becoming a quickly growing market. And while energy powered by nuclear fusion is still a far-off goal, the first major scientific breakthrough in the space is fueling hope for a fusion-powered future.
While some social media users are still scrambling to find a new home to replace Twitter and other dying legacy platforms, Gen Z has found another solution to the chaos: staying off social media altogether.
Netflix is entering the fitness world with the availability of Nike Training Club classes, its next attempt to break out of the streaming-only bubble.
Did you get a LEGO set to build or a Funko pop to add to your collection as a holiday gift this year? You’re not alone — adults purchasing toys for themselves has become a major driver of growth in the toy industry, responsible for about a quarter of annual sales.
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