October 25, 2012 – Lady Gaga? Bangs? [ed: Yikes] Neon Fashion? On the way out. So are cleansing fasts, the Occupy movement and the recession. What’s in? Stay-at-home dads, Pinterest, apps, and tablets. At least that’s the word from the latest edition of The Curve, a bi-annual book from NBCUniversal Integrated Media dedicated to anticipating what’s next in the lives of Generation X and Y consumers. (Note to Ryan Gosling, cake pops, vampires, and zombies: You’re on the fence.)
The just-published second volume of The Curve is a detailed report on social and cultural trends, based on data collected from Gen X and Y survey respondents, “leading edge consumers,” expert interviews, and proprietary research. The new, 2013 edition focuses in particular on digital trendsetters, the 5% of the national population who are not only on Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare, but also have above the average number of friends on social networks, above the average number of apps on their smartphones, and are among the first of their friends to buy the newest gadgets.
It’s not just their digital behavior that makes this group stand out. “Their outlook on life is completely different,” says Melissa Lavigne-Delville, Executive Trends and Culture Editor, NBCUniversal Integrated Media, who headed up research on The Curve. “They trend much happier, much more optimistic. They think they’re healthier than most. They think they’re hotter than most. They also believe they are going to be famous more than the mainstream.”
Digital trendsetters aren’t entirely full of themselves. As a group, they are surprisingly honest. “A vast majority of respondents say they represent themselves accurately online, but everybody else embellishes themselves. But digital trendsetters admit that they embellish themselves online,” says Lavigne-Delville.
They are also more likely to admit committing one of the 7 Digital Sins, which include sexting, online stalking, chronic oversharing, and drunk shopping (see infographic).
To read full article and infographics on FastCoCreate, click here.
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