Chair Potato is the New Couch Potato

After attending the ThinkLA Trends Breakfast (#ThinkTrends) earlier this week at the Beverly Hills Hotel, all I can think about is that I'm going to need a new chair. Right now I'm sitting on a dining room chair with an extra cushion and it still is not very comfortable. My office chair hurts my back.

Chairs were not a trend discussed in the "We Are Connected" theme by three dynamos of the Digital Age: Ciaran Bossum, Director of Digital Strategy & Brand Participation at Saatchi & Saatchi Los Angeles; Jonah Peretti, Founder and CEO of Buzzfeed and Co-Founder of The Huffington Post; and Dr. Jeffrey Cole, Director, Center for Digital Future at USC Annenberg School for Communication. Over 500 attendees were privy to the presentations, almost all of whom were clutching their smartphones and multi-tasking as the behavioral charts projected on room monitors said they would.

Bossum’s message focused on the shift in consumer behavior to multi-platform and second screen experiences. We watch TV while simultaneously multi-tasking and the primary content delivery vehicle is our phone. We are used to shifting across platforms from our big screen TVs to our laptops and iPads (sequential usage). Consumers are now comfortable purchasing on line, but we better be able to do it on our phones or the deal may be off.

Our social behavior is changing the way we use our devices too. We want to share our experiences with our friends by tweeting or posting comments with others watching an event at the same time (simultaneous usage), especially during live events like the Super Bowl.    

Peretti, who shared his hilarious journey from taking on Nike on “The Today Show” to his Rejection Hotline http://bit.ly/Ww83zW , is an expert on how things go viral. BuzzFeed is the first true social news organization that provides a pioneering mix of breaking news, entertainment and shareable content. Once thought of more for its humorist lists like “13 Simple Steps to Get You Through a Rough Day,” BuzzFeed recently hired Ben Smith of POLITICO as Editor-in-Chief and scooped the news media when President Obama visited Afghanistan.

Peretti encourages adding to humor to the mix. He compares the current social media landscape to “Publishing is now a Paris Café.” It’s okay to read Sartre and and pet the dog. He says it’s about fun and the human experience. 

Cole traced how the mass medium has shifted from radio to TV and now to digital viewing. When TV became the focus we started watching three hours a day. That time came at the cost of family conversations and reading a book or magazine. Now we have expanded our viewing time from 16 hours to 44 hours a week and he expects this will go to 55 hours. 

It was Cole's discussion about e-commerce and our use of the internet that made me think about getting a new chair. Cole said while we were reluctant at first to purchase online, now it has become such a part of our daily lives that we are making even the most mundane of purchases because we will get them in 48 hours. Amazon is pushing that delivery window to same day--order by 10am, receive by 6pm. Why go out in the rain to buy kitty litter if I can have it delivered to my door? Cole predicts that Amazon will deliver cars to our doorstep in the near future. 

Another point Cole made is that we can't escape the internet. For every hour we may surreptitiously surf at work, we spend three hours at home working. We sleep with our phones. Now we fluctuate between "FOMO—the Fear of Missing Out" to wanting to turn it all off with what The New York Times called "JOMO—the Joy of Missing Out."

So I ask you, is your chair comfortable enough to handle these digital trends? We already work from home and shop from home. I'm not sure I'll need a car delivered to my home, but I know I am going to need a better chair!