Stuarts 2021 Predictions

Tis the season for this generic crystal ball nonsense, but this year I will game the system by being one of the first, before it gets too annoying. Plus, after the 2020 we just had, an eye on a brighter future is something to enjoy, right?

So here is 2021, step by step, through the eyes of someone completely unqualified to make such predications:

Brexit will cause a mountain of disruption

2021 will start right where 2020 left off, un utter turmoil. Market uncertainty coupled with a mad scramble to understand either the new trade agreement, or indeed what WTO terms mean for our daily lives, will lead to a severe lack of toilet roll in Tesco for a while at least.

Vaccine is here, but so is homeworking

With the roll out of the vaccine, there is cause for optimism in the world. However, economic disaster aside, this pandemic has caused a trend shift in how we will work and live throughout 2021. Flexible working, home working etc were already on the rise, but now, oh boy, is it here to stay.

Businesses have identified that those pesky ground rent charges and rates and utilities maybe outweigh the benefit of having everyone around a nest of desks. As a result of this, the uptake in technology will allow businesses to really embrace the idea of a 'new normal' with flexible working hubs overtaking traditional office spaces going forward in a massive way.

Home gyms and Home cooked meals

If my life is an indication for everyone else (which it absolutely should not be), this year has had some pretty massive positives. Blessed to find that my garage was useable not only for storing a vast array of never-touched-twice rubbish, it could be converted into a makeshift gym.

By no means something I could charge entry for, it has allowed me another way to save time, running downstairs for a 30 minute workout before work, vs the traditional getting ready for the gym routine. That and cooking vs takeaway. With homeworking comes more flexibility and more time to do different things. I still make a crap curry, but it is very much improved over the course of 2020. But people in the home gym industry are going to have a bumper 2021.

The online community

Certainly one area 2020 truly sucked was in mental health. New challenges of mass isolation compounded an already fractured and strained mental health service in the UK. Community has been discovered online, through video conferencing with family as well as gaming. With the advent of the next generation of gaming consoles, this will drive the online community in even greater numbers (obviously a massive list of pros and cons to THAT sentence). But, it has to be identified that now, since the advent of gaming, we are now at a stage where both parent and child can be equally avid gamers, as we enter the 2nd generation of online gaming.

Challenges aplenty but also really exciting to see how modes of expression and community are forming across the gaming world.

Less socially distanced socialising

As lockdowns end, and we wearily return to the outside world, I for one, cannot wait to go to a concert, or a bar, without another sitdown meal.

But it is impossible to underestimate the massive psychological impact 2020 has had on these events. Looking at footage from reading, glastonbury, *insert any other live concert* it looks like qualified insanity that we used to huddle so. However, we did, the question is, will we again?

I am not sure that the feeling of security will return as quickly as people think. We will go out, we will go to concerts, the screens will come down, but the caution will remain.

Conclusion

2021 will be a year for reflection, a picking over of the remains of 2020. The big wheels of technology will turn, and we will adopt more and more services to help us live, work, and play, in a more decentralised (read: somewhat isolated) way. And as we carve out the new neural pathways to help us cope with what is, we will find new communities and the strain on the world will ease. In time, we will get some of the way back to before, we will socialise closer and closer, but I feel 2021 will be a year for rebuilding rather than one of progress.

We will adapt as a society (sadly) to being more disconnected more often, although in this we will absolutely relish social activities more than we ever did before. It won't stop being strange for a while, but once we had weathered the storm of 2020, what does normal even look like any more.