Forever, or at least a few months...

Have you ever read trendwatching? It's a monthly update that is sometimes really useful for sparking bright ideas. Well, it works for me occassionally anyway.

June's focus is all about 'foreverism', the concept that behind our hunger for the now there is also a longing for conversation, relationships (see how I said that without stuttering - my, how I've grown!) and products that are made to last. It's a nice thought but I'm not wholly onboard with the logic, purly because forever doesn't seem to mean as long as it did for previous generations.

Trendwatching cites the likes of Facebook and MySpace as places that people go to forge relationships and put up a profile of themselves that evolves, endures and represents them through their lifetime. I'd like to find out how many of these profiles are abandoned in the first month, six months or year of being established. Personally, I use Facebook daily because it keeps me close to home and is a stress-free way of hanging together all the friendships that I value around the world.

But another example is LinkedIn. I started to use LinkedIn about five years ago when it first started up...but stopped soon after because it didn't 'do' anything. I randomly picked it up again about six months ago (after emailing off for help on my password and user ID) to find a backlog of link requests and some interesting (though by then out dated) job offers! Twitter and Yammer I jump on and off as and when I feel like it, and my blog - which languished for a year when I moved out to Dubai - is testimony to my wavering attention span. As for Friends Reunited and many others that have gone by the wayside, well the fact it's just taken me ten minutes to remember the name says it all.

So I wonder if there is actually a trend these days to things that are not so temporary, disposable and lack in depth as people seek out products, relationships and sources with more substance. I can believe the theory, especially in times that hold uncertainty for many people. The thought of a constant in life, something or someone reliable is very appealing when the economy goes south for whatever reason. But bandwagons will still be bandwagons, and we all love to jump on one!