Trends and Topics in Print Media

Every Monday morning, a team of Access media mavens gathers to read the latest trends and topics covered in print media (yes, we still read print media!). The team shares these insights agency wide to ensure we’re all informed and equipped for the week ahead. Every week, we’ll share learnings from the consumer, business and tech spaces here on the Access Point.

This week, we learned consumer choices are never-ending, and how our favorite smart home assistants are teaming up to make life a bit easier.

• Just Pick Something!

The amount of choices consumers have today can result in decision fatigue – a physiological term for mental burnout when picking out something new. Parents Magazine reports that “our brains have limited reserves for decision making each day, which even minor debates can drain before we pile on weightier dilemmas.” Decision making is especially hard for today’s parents, with a limitless amount of options from TV shows to toys to clothes. For example, parents grew up with watching whatever happened to be on television, whereas children today have media at their fingertips through streaming services and YouTube, which they can watch on iPads. The array of shopping choices have also grown. In fact, “between the 1990s and now, the average number of items for sale soared from 7,000 to up to 50,000.” (Petra Guglielmetti, Parents).

• Getting Siri and Alexa to Cooperate

The 2010s made it clear that tech is everywhere, and there’s no stopping in 2020. The New York Times predicted the technology trends to look out for this new year including the truce of virtual assistants Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri. Amazon, Apple and Google announced “they are working together on a standard to help make smart home products compatible with one another,” so your internet-connected Amazon lightbulb will also work through Siri and Google Assistant. The hope is to eliminate complexity and provide seamless home automation without the need to call a specific assistant. We approve of this new friendship! (Brian Chen, The New York Times).