The search for balance continues
Four developments that go hand in hand with being online more intensively. These are great developments, but also developments that you can question. In the end, it is a search for a balance between online and offline. Online has become a mature medium and pastime. In the coming years, I expect that online will enrich and occupy us even more. At the same time, offline will experience a kind of list to data revival, its value will be rediscovered. As I said at the beginning of this article, we still like to be able to look people straight in the eye.
In 2013 we will of course continue to do research. Next year I hope to be able to give another update on how the deepening of online is going and the rediscovery of offline. For now I am curious whether you see other trends that are related to more intensive online?
At TNS NIPO, we conduct more than 2,000 surveys among Dutch people every year. We ask about their preferences, wishes, intentions and (un)certainties. These surveys cover practically all sectors of the Dutch market and provide insights into how the market is moving and in which direction that movement is going. In order to bundle these insights into a single story, I conducted a qualitative survey in 2012 among a number of colleagues who are each experts in a sector. From this, I was able to identify three major trends that will shape the Netherlands in 2013 and the coming years. These are:
more self-reliance;
greater division;
more intensively online.
Using the third trend, more intensive online, I want to describe the balance between online and offline in this article. Online is increasingly taking up time from our offline lives, at least that is how we experience it. It is possible that the two will be so intertwined in the future that they can no longer be separated. Within the trend, more intensive online, I see four developments that go hand in hand with the increasing use of the internet.