Slower, Smarter, and More Grounded Connection
From phone-free spaces and dark forests to academia nights and communal living, people are trading shallow consumption and perpetual connectivity for slower, smarter, and more collective ways of spending time together. Shout out to this month’s trend spotters: Donny Fox, Kianna Hendricks, Jillian Berry, and Jon Gafney!
Mobile experiences are getting more intentional
With digital detoxing on the rise, experiences pivot from content capture to physical presence.
In the era of social media addiction and doomscrolling, consumers are increasingly fighting to reclaim agency over their attention. The push for digital detoxing has already begun to reshape social settings through phone-free concerts and bars, and now, it’s making its way into high-visibility brand events.
Intellectual third spaces become social currency
Ideas become identity through shared interpretation and a visible point of view.
From Substack’s evolution into a cultural engine to the rise of “bloomscrolling,” intellectual engagement is becoming social. Offline, this shows up in lecture series like Lectures on Tap and Profs & Pints which bring academia into nightlife, PowerPoint nights that turn analysis into entertainment and reading retreats like Page Break that blurs the line between media and gathering.
Moving away from the traditional home
Shared living models are reshaping what “home” looks like.
The old way of living is unsustainable, literally and figuratively. Under pressure, people are opting out of older systems and redefining what “home” is. As people live longer, stay in school longer, and delay leaving the household, shared modes of living like From Mommunes, Agrihoods, and Birdnesting, are becoming more common.
The Dark Forestification turn of the Internet
Attention overload is driving people to seek hidden places of connection and respite.
The “Dark Forest” comes from Liu Cixin’s sci-fi trilogy, Three Body Problem. A Dark Forest means that at night the forest feels empty, yet in actuality everything is just hiding to avoid the risk of attention. Yancey Strickler was the one who proposed this internet trajectory towards a place of Dark Forests where the wider internet carried risk (judgement, tracking, cancellation, marketing) and withdrawing to closed spaces (Discords, Slacks, Telegram, group chats) could provide privacy, safety, quiet, and focus. Seven years on, the withdrawal pattern has only increased.
OUT-THERE EXPERIENCES
People, brands and marketers continue to push the boundaries of physical and digital experiences, with new and creative executions popping up across the globe.
Catch up on all our previous Experience Intelligence reports. Or schedule a strategy session with us!
