网络焦虑将催生六大趋势

新的一年已经来临，我们再次下决心要多进行积极地思考，少吃碳水化合物。各种新年愿望未必都能实现，但汉威士公关集团北美分公司在最近发布的《2016趋势报告》中指出的几大趋势，还是很有可能成为现实的。

汉威士公关北美分公司CEO玛丽安·莎兹曼已经连续20年编制这一年度趋势报告。该报告提供的趋势预测涵盖科技、生活方式等多个方面。她对《财富》表示，2016年大趋势的主题将是“焦虑”。

首先，我们不要把它和恐惧、恐慌等容易引起肾上腺素飙升的极端情绪混为一谈。莎兹曼解释道，今年的主导情绪将是那种使人不得安宁的焦虑。她在接受《财富》采访时表示：“2016年的情绪是‘焦虑’。从吃饭、育儿、旅游到使用太多的科技产品，我认为我们正在进入情绪报警的一年。”

莎兹曼预测的这几大趋势直接解释了为什么许多人都说他们非常焦虑——因为缺乏时间，缺乏便利，缺乏与家人的沟通。以下就为大家奉上2016年的六大趋势，它们的根源正是来自于那些日常压力。

1.低头族们，控制一下自己吧

如果你曾经跟一个正在低头看手机的人聊天，却被对方超长的反射弧搞得煎熬无比，那么欢迎加入“被低头族逼疯俱乐部”。不管你是被人逼疯的那个，还是把人逼疯的那个，你都亲身体验了这些与科技有关的行为是如何影响活生生的人与人关系的。莎兹曼指出，在2016年，低头族们可能会尝试着控制这些坏习惯。

莎兹曼表示：“我们都想随时随地和人保持联系，哪怕只是失联一秒钟也吓得要死。”因此，在新的一年里，一些人将尝试控制着使用移动设备的频率，就像有人会通过节省和运动来瘦身一样。不过莎兹曼也指出，不管人们多想重新在现实生活中与人建立联系，“智能手机依赖症”仍然不是一个容易摆脱的习惯。

她表示：“我们想要接近其他人，但我们害怕‘断联’。”

2、“大忽悠”的黄金时代

“真相感”（Truthiness）已经不仅仅是喜剧演员史蒂芬·科尔伯特生造出来的一个词。它被《韦氏词典》评为2006年度热词。这个词的意思是“以为自己希望的观点或事实是对的，而不是认可已被公认的观点或事实。”

莎兹曼认为，一些强力传播的“真实”观点将主宰我们的话语，而真相则会被泯灭。她表示：“现在，许多人的做法已经超越了‘真相感’的程度，夸大其词、唱高调的做法越来越流行。然后，你的‘忽悠’就变得更令人信服。相比之下，事实和真相变得不那么重要了，更重要的是你是否有能力让你的‘忽悠’听起来有真实感。”

可能有人觉得，莎兹曼是在影射某个最近成为共和党总统候选人的房地产大亨，但实际上她并没有直接影射那个人的意思。她表示，这种现象并不仅仅局限于政界。“这种趋势在各个舞台的各种话语中都存在。比如当你看电影海报的时候，海报上引用的影评可能跟观众真实的评价没有半点相似之处。”

虽然这种做法非常不地道，而且会激起所有观众的一致愤慨，但别指望这种“大忽悠”很快就会消失。毕竟，科学已经证明，肆意发泄情绪的感觉相当不错。

3、应用热

在如今这个年代，随便一家公司都打算弄一个移动应用。这种心态导致很多大公司推出了一批显然不合时宜的应用，但依然阻止不了这种趋势继续蔓延。

莎兹曼表示：“我们把一切都‘应用化’了。我们想给每件事都找条捷径。从找出租车到看病，再到数数我今天走了几步。”

“应用热”并非只是一个消费现象。每个怀抱致富梦想的创业者都相信，他正在开发的应用，就是一把能打开未知宝藏的钥匙。

“下一个美国的财富梦就是：‘我会做一个突破性的应用出来，我将随之成为下一个扎克伯格。”

4、大城市，让我喘口气吧

乡村音乐的传奇默尔勒·哈格德曾唱过一句著名的歌词：“我厌倦了这座肮脏的老城市。”他比他的时代超前了35年。据莎兹曼称，很多来到大城市寻找梦想的人正在逃离到一些小地方追求更高的生活质量。

“以前人们爱到纽约、伦敦和洛杉矶这种地方来追梦，但现在人们正在寻找其他一些宜居的城市。”她举了奥斯汀和那什维尔等城市作例子。“日益壮大的时尚阶层和创意阶层不再追求特大城市，他们想去波特兰、缅因、伯明翰、阿拉巴马这种能买得起房子的地方生活。在这种城市，他们才能过上真正属于自己的生活。”

5、学校，一个过时的高雅概念

微软创始人比尔·盖茨去年6月曾劝告学生们待在学校里，并且最好从大学毕业，他说这是一条“更可靠的成功道路”。这是一个相当不错的感悟，不过对于盖茨这样一个坐拥790亿美元身家的富豪来说，如果他自己也是个大学毕业生的话，这番话才能更加引起共鸣。盖茨或许不知道，如今美国大学生从大学毕业时，平均每人要背负高达28,950美元的学生贷款。

“我们发现，美国已经出现了一股学生离开学校的大潮。”莎兹曼指出，许多年轻人要么选择完全离开学校，要么选择到一些机构接受实用型教育。“像东北大学和很多提供经验型教学的学校正在兴起。”

6、烹饪之死

一家名叫“蓝围裙”（Blue Apron）的公司为顾客提供了一种包含有全套准备好的食材原料的工具箱，消费者只需按照说明就能非常方便地做出一顿饭来。这家公司在2014年募集了5000万美元风投资金。自那时起，包括Din和Gobble在内的其他一些公司也相继推出类似的工具箱。Gobble于去年10月宣布，该公司计划冲出加州大本营，将向美国的其他州乃至海外市场扩展。

不难理解这类公司为什么会很快流行起来。人们现在可以用来从头准备一顿饭的时间越来越少了。莎兹曼表示，这就是为什么明年会有更多类似公司出现。

“越来越多的美国人在做像‘蓝围裙’提供的那种饭。这基本上是一种完全不同的烹饪方式，跟我们祖辈做饭的方式不一样，不是从头准备的。我们并不是在杀死厨房，而是在拔掉厨房的羽毛，它一去不复返了。”（财富中文网）

本文作者Daniel Bukszpan是纽约的一位自由撰稿人。

译者：朴成奎

审校：任文科

A new year is upon us, and with it comes renewed promises to think positively and eat less carbs. While these resolutions may meet with mixed results, the newly-released 2016 Trend Report from Havas PR North America identifies trends that are most likely to loom large in 2016.

Havas PR North America CEO Marian Salzman has been compiling the firm’s annual trend reports for 20 years, offering predictions on such topics as technology, lifestyle and more. She told Fortune that in 2016, the “übertrend” will be unease.

This is not to be confused with fear, panic or any other highly charged state in which adrenaline flows freely. Rather, she said that the prevailing emotion in the coming year will be one of nagging apprehension.“Anxiety is the emotion of 2016,” she said in an interview graciously granted to Fortune at 9 am on New Year’s Day. “From eating, to parenting, to traveling, to using too much tech, I think we’re entering a year when those emotional alarm bells are ringing.”

The trends cited by Salzman speak directly to the anxieties cited by so many Americans — lack of time, lack of convenience and lack of connection to loved ones. Here are the six biggest trends that will shape 2016, courtesy of the day-to-day stresses that inspire them.

Tech addict, control thyself

If you’ve ever talked to someone who’s looking at a smartphone, only to be stonewalled, well… welcome to the club. Whichever side of this equation you’ve been on, you’ve experienced firsthand how tech-related behavior gets in the way of flesh-and-blood relationships, and Salzman said that 2016 may bring some attempts to rein in this habit.

“We both want to be in the game at all times and be always on, but we’re scared to death if we disconnect for one second,” she said. Thus we should expect to see people attempt to curb their use of mobile devices, in the same way that we see people attempting to diet or exercise. However, she added that no matter how much people want to reconnect with others, smartphone addiction wouldn’t be easy to shake.

“We want to be near to people, but we’re afraid to disconnect,” she said.

“The Golden Age of B.S.”

“Truthiness” is no longer a fake word coined by comedian Stephen Colbert. In 2006, it became Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year, defined as“the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true.”

Salzman said that “truthy” concepts disseminated in ham-fisted fashion will dominate our discourse, facts be damned.“It’s become much more fashionable to go beyond truthiness, to be bombastic, to be profoundly loud,” she said. “Then, your B.S. becomes more believable. Fact and truth matter less than your ability to sound truthful.”

Lest you believe that Salzman is talking about a particular real estate mogul turned Republican presidential candidate, she isn’t. In fact, she said that this phenomenon isn’t limited to politics. “This goes for all kinds of claims in all kinds of arenas,” she said. “When you look at movie posters, the callout quote may bear no resemblance to the actual review.”

While this practice smacks of dishonesty and engenders uniform outrage from all onlookers, don’t expect it to go away any time soon. After all, presenting an emotional outburst as a scientifically-proven fact feels pretty darn good.

App fever

In this day and age, any company worth its salt is expected to have a mobile app. This mentality has led some major companies to release apps that wereclearly not ready for prime time, but that’s done nothing to stop this trend from barreling forward.

“We ‘app-ify’ everything,” Salzman said. “We want shortcuts for everything. To find a taxi, to confirm my medical symptoms, to find out how many steps I’ve walked.”

App mania isn’t just a consumer phenomenon. Every self-styled entrepreneur with dreams of striking it rich believes that the app he or she is developing is the key to untold riches.

“The next American dream of money is, ‘I’ll build the app that breaks through and I’ll become the next Mark Zuckerberg,’” she said.

Big city, turn me loose

Country music legend Merle Haggard was 35 years ahead of his time when he sang that he was “tired of this dirty old city.” According to Salzman, many of those who once flocked to major urban centers to make something of themselves are now rejecting those same cities, preferring smaller locations with better quality of life.

“It used to be places like New York, London and Los Angeles, but now people are looking for cities that are livable,” she said, citing Austin and Nashville. “The developing hipster class, the creative class, no longer has any desire to run off to one of the mega-cities. They want to live in a city where you can buy a home, like Portland, Maine or Birmingham, Alabama. Those cities are taking on a life of their own now.”

School, a quaintly outmoded concept

In June, Microsoft founder Bill Gates urged studentsto stay in school and graduate from college, describing it as “a much surer path to success.” It’s a nice sentiment, one that might have had more resonance coming from someone who, unlike Gates, actually finished college and still went on to gain the same $79 billion net worth. Instead, the dollar figure that many potential college students see is the$28,950 worth of student debt with which the average US college student graduates.

“There’s been a big tide away from school as we know it,” Salzman said, noting that many young people are either turning away from school entirely or choosing insitutions that can offer practical, hands-on education. “A school like Northeastern is booming. So is any school that offers experiential learning.”

The death of cooking

Blue Apron delivers kits containing fully prepped meal ingredients to its customers — just follow the instructions and assemble the meals. The company raised $50 million in venture capital funding in 2014, and since then, other companies offering similar kits have emerged, including Din and Gobble, which announced in October that it plans to expand beyond its native California to other states and time zones.

It’s not hard to understand why these companies have become so popular so quickly. People have less time than ever to prepare home-cooked meals from scratch, and Salzman said this is why we’ll be seeing more of these businesses in the coming year.

“More and more Americans are doing meals like the ones you get from Blue Apron,” she said. “It’s very much about a different kind of cooking, not the kind our grandparents did, not starting from scratch. We’re not murdering the chicken any more, we’re not plucking the feathers off of the chicken. That’s gone forever.”

Daniel Bukszpan is a New York-based freelance writer.