Research Roundup
Date: February 6, 2009
 

The near future:
  • A mega-list of predicted trends for 2009, courtesy of Brainmail. These run the gamut from food trends (“micro-regional cuisine”) to travel trends (“more solo travel”) to television trends (“science fiction will be huge in 2009”) and beyond.
  • One new survey predicts that corporate giving will remain stable in 2009: “According to a study by LBG Research Institute, the majority of companies surveyed anticipate no change or an increase in corporate contributions in 2009.  Of those with corporate foundations, 50% say their foundation budgets will remain flat.  However, 49% of companies that support arts and culture expect their giving to decrease in this area.  More than 80% said their giving will be more strategic.  For information, www.lbgresearch.org.” (Courtesy of the Business Committee for the Arts.)  But Business Week reports that nonprofits are scrambling for funding, with such unorthodox fundraising techniques as “virtual black-tie events on Facebook” and “charity polar bear swims.”

Social trends, etc.:
  • “The End of White America?”   Writing in The Atlantic, Hua Hsu discusses “the gradual erosion of ‘whiteness’ as the touchstone of what it means to be American.”
  • Science Daily asks, “Is Technology Producing A Decline In Critical Thinking And Analysis?” UCLA researcher Patricia Greenfield argues that “Learners have changed as a result of their exposure to technology,” as reading-based skills (“imagination, induction, reflection and critical thinking”) have given way a tech-filled environment that places a premium on visual skills and multi-tasking. Meanwhile, the Gallup Poll reports that “48% [of Americans] now report using the Internet more than one hour per day compared to 26% in 2002.”
 
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“The camera has created a culture of celebrity; the computer is creating a culture of connectivity. As the two technologies converge—broadband tipping the Web from text to image, social-networking sites spreading the mesh of interconnection ever wider—the two cultures betray a common impulse. Celebrity and connectivity are both ways of becoming known. This is what the contemporary self wants. It wants to be recognized, wants to be connected: It wants to be visible. … The great contemporary terror is anonymity. … So we live exclusively in relation to others, and what disappears from our lives is solitude. Technology is taking away our privacy and our concentration, but it is also taking away our ability to be alone.”

Research Reports:
  • Volunteering in the United States, 2008: About 61.8 million people, or 26.4% of the population, volunteered at least once between September 2007 and September 2008, according to the latest statistics from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Americans age 35-44 continued to be the most likely volunteers (31.3%), while Americans in their early twenties were the least likely (18.6%). Just 3.3% volunteered for organizations in the areas of “sport, hobby, cultural, or arts” (which includes most museums).

Other articles, essays, and recent items of interest:
  • A look at the future of paper, as imagined by the Palo Alto Research Center, “where scientists are developing a way to print an image that disappears, allowing the paper to be used dozens of times.” (These are the folks who helped bring us the computer mouse, among other innovations.)
  • DiRT, the Digital Research Tools Wiki, provides descriptions and links to dozens of digital research tools—including tools for blogging, brainstorming, analyzing data, editing images, sharing information, visualizing data and more. Most of them are free. 
  • A blog set 40 years in the future.

Useless Time-Wasters:
 

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