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消费者会将过去的事物浪漫化、会追求能代表身份认同并且有意义的故事

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们刚刚看过了福特(Ford)上周发布的"2014年趋势报告"。大多大趋势──包括消费者会将过去的事物浪漫化、会追求能代表身份认同并且有意义的故事──似乎都是跟钱有关的，看起来比较稳妥而且中庸。

 

但有一个趋势似乎特别扎眼，仿佛福特从汽车生产商摇身一变成了训练有素的心理分析师。用福特报告中的话说：渴望得到确证：在这个自我表达爆棚、公共新闻报道无处不在、其他数字化表达形式极为丰富的世界里，顾客们都在创建一个"公共的自我"，这个自我可能比真实的自我更需要确证。

 

报告还说：

 

我们生活在一个自我表达爆棚（还要加上各种自拍）、公共新闻报道无处不在、别种数字化表达形式极为丰富的世界里。作为写作者，我们有机会制造出自己的身份认知，讲述我们特有的故事。表面上看起来像是爱慕虚荣的表演──可能最初的确有这个目的，但却出自渴望确证的深层愿望。Facebook上的一两个"赞"就能让我们感觉良好，而十多个"赞"则会让我们产生一种安静但强烈的愿望，要把我们写出来的东西再看一遍，并按照我们的喜好──以及按照他人的喜好──加以润色、修改、编辑。但在我们磨平"公共的自我"的棱角的同时，我们会不会掩盖掉自己真实的自我呢？

 

还有什么能比那块散发着魔力和光芒的显示屏──通向"公共的自我"的门户──更能让我们逃过我们真实的自我这个令人恐怖的现实呢？下面是这份报告中一前一后紧接着提到的两个"微趋势"：

 

 

苹果的新 诞节广告击中的就是这一点：在一起 诞度假的时候，一个看上去沉浸在自我世界里的十几岁的少年似乎不怎么跟自己的一大家子人合群，总是看自己的手机，而不是自己的祖母。但后来我们才恍然大悟：他一直想要在手机上创造出一个完美版的家庭 诞节。

 

这个孩子的电影，以及这个广告本身，可能会起到催泪效果，但正如Gizmodo 网站的巴雷特(Brian Barrett)所说，他是在一个人类学意义的距离上体验这个假期的，他是一个偷偷摸摸的电影制作者，与这个世界保持着一个视网膜屏幕的距离。（他的这篇帖子值得一读。）

 

手机以及过分沉迷于数字记录是在逃避悲哀的人类现实这种理念并不新鲜，数月前Louis CK对科南·奥布赖恩(Conan O'Brien)说的一番话最能表明这一点：

 

在你生活中所有东西的背后，就是那个东西，那种空虚──永远的空虚。你知道，你所做的一切都是无用的。你心里是这么知道的。有时候，一切变得明朗的时候，你就看不到什么东西了，你坐在你的车里，你突然感觉到，哦，是的，就是这样，我是一个人。这种感觉会随时光临你，这就是为什么我们会一边开车一边发信息，人们宁愿冒着撞死别人、毁掉自己的风险也要这么做，因为他们一秒钟都不想一个人。

 

这种说法或许没什么新意，但福特的一些调查数据为我们提供了一些线索，表明各大企业会如何利用这一点获利：62%的人说，当人们对他们在社交媒体发的东西有积极回应的话，他们会自我感觉更好──对市场营销者来说，还有比这更好的机会吗？平均而言，手机使用者每天会查看手机150次，因此手机几乎占据了我们生活的方方面面。

 

但对福特和其他汽车生产商来说，这里还有一个更实际也更迫切的问题：40%的美国青少年说，他们曾经坐过的车的司机一边驾车一边打电话，将人置于危险境地，从2004年到2010年间，因手机相关事故到急诊室接受治疗的行人数量增加了300%。

 

很多汽车已经整合了电话功能，可以让司机在开车的时候将电话静音，但需要做的事还有很多。福特说，一个研究领域是，研发出这样的系统，在交通状况和健康读数表明外界干扰可能增加司机的压力水平的时候，屏蔽各种科技产品。

 

然而遗憾的是，并没有信息表明，福特会开发能解决内心永恒空虚这一问题的技术。

We just got around to taking a look at Ford's 2014 trend report, released last week. The big trends, including consumers 'romanticizing how things used to be' and 'hunting for stories of identity and meaning' seem generally on the money, if a little safe and middle-of-the-road.

But one really stuck out -- and reads like Ford jumping from its role as carmaker into something closer to a seasoned psychoanalyst. In Ford's words: 'Vying for Validation: In a world of hyper-self-expression, chronic public journaling and other forms of digital expression, consumers are creating a public self that may need validation even more than their authentic self.'

There's more:

We are living in a world of hyper self-expression, complete with 'selfies,' chronic public-journaling and other forms of digital self-expression. As authors, we have the opportunity to craft our own identity and tell the stories that are unique to us. What looks like--and perhaps started as--vanity showmanship is now a deep desire for validation. A Facebook 'like' or two makes us feel good. A dozen 'likes' makes us feel great, creating a quiet but fierce need to revisit the pieces of our narrative, to tweak, color and edit them to our liking--and to the liking of others. But as we smooth out the rough edges of our public self, do we gloss over our real character?

And what better way to avoid the terrifying reality of our real selves than that magical glowing screen, portal to our public self? Here's two mini-trends noted side by side in the report:

Apple's new Christmas ad plays right into this: A seemingly self-absorbed teen appears detached from his extended family during their Christmas vacation together, focused on his phone not his grandma. That's until the big reveal: He's been working on his phone to create an idealized movie version of the family Christmas:

The kid's movie -- and the ad itself -- may be something of a tear-jerker, but as Gizmodo's Brian Barrett says, 'he's experiencing the holidays at an anthropological remove. He's a skulking auteur, keeping the world at retina display's length.' (That whole post is worth a read.)

The idea of cellphones and obsessive digital documenting as an escape from sad human reality is far from a new one, and was best summed up in Louis CK's rant to Conan O'Brien a few months ago:

Underneath everything in your life there is that thing, that empty--forever empty. That knowledge that it's all for nothing and that you're alone. It's down there. And sometimes when things clear away, you're not watching anything, you're in your car, and you start going, 'oh no, here it comes. That I'm alone.' It's starts to visit on you.... That's why we text and drive....people are willing to risk taking a life and ruining their own because they don't want to be alone for a second.'

It might not be a new insight, but some of Ford's survey data hints at how companies can capitalize on it: 62% of adults say they feel better about themselves when people react positively to something they post on social media -- what better time for a marketer to pounce? And the average cell phone user checks their device 150 times a day, hence mobile's rapid ascent in the world of pretty much everything.

But for Ford and its peers, there is a more practical -- and urgent -- issue in all this: 40% of U.S. teens say they have been in a car where the driver put people in danger by using their phone while driving, and the number of pedestrians treated in emergency rooms for cell phone-related incidents rose 300% between 2004 and 2010.

Plenty of cars already come with phone integration that lets drivers mute calls when in motion, but there's still more to be done. Ford says one area of research is systems that will 'block out technology when traffic conditions and health readings determine that outside interference would increase driver stress levels.'

No word yet on Ford resolving the eternal emptiness within, unfortunately.



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