Why We'll Take Longer Baths in the Future

Home alone

The growth of urban singles is driving everything from a growth in late-night convenience retailing (for example, buying a single portion of chicken fillet at 1.00 a.m.) to how the tables and chairs are laid out in your local McDonald's. Reasons for this urban renaissance are various.

Twenty years ago it seemed as though everyone was moving out of the cities. In the US the term 'white flight' was coined to describe white, middle-class families fleeing inner-city crime and grime to start new lives in the suburbs. Nowadays the reverse is happening. Known as boomerang migration, singles and childless couples are flooding back into cities like New York, London, and Melbourne because that's where the action is and the commute isn't. Indeed, by the year 2050, if this trend continues, most inner cities will be made up almost entirely of rich singles, wealthy families, and gay couples with high disposable incomes and liberal political persuasions. Rural areas that still exist will be populated by rich hobby-farmers interspersed with down-shifters and digital nomads.

But it's not just the cities that are changing. In 1950, 80 percent of US households comprised the traditional husband, wife, and one or more kids. Now it's less than 50 percent. The rest are singles and same-sex couples (increasingly with kids). There are also 'blended families -- mother, father, plus two or more children from different relationships or marriages and extended financial families -- homes with more than one generation living under the same roof.

In other words, shifts in social attitudes (what is considered normal or acceptable), together with changes in demographics, housing stock, and even retailing are making it easier to live however you like. And for many people this means by themselves. Even if you don't live alone you will increasingly be able to do whatever you want unencumbered by family pressure or practical considerations. This is freedom without responsibility. For example, at a recent new home show in the US, a dream home was displayed that allowed each family member to enter the house via a different entrance. Individuals could watch TV or surf the Internet in their own room, and choose separate kitchen facilities and bathrooms, so as not to interact with other family members. And to think that back in the 1980s people were worried about families not eating breakfast together. In the middle of the twenty-first century the problem will be how to get individual members of the family to even talk to each other.

In Australia in 2005, adults spent on average three hours watching TV everyday -- and twelve minutes talking to their partner. In the US over 25 per cent of two-year-olds have a TV in their bedroom, and children aged two to seventeen spend twenty hours a week watching TV versus thirty-eight minutes talking to their parents.

No wonder the fastest growing reason for women seeking a divorce in some countries is absent (always-at-work or always working) partners. There is already a growing gulf between the sexes, and this will open up even further in the future as women become more economically self-sufficient. Even when both sexes are together physically, men are usually emotionally somewhere else. Women just want to talk, while men just want women to be quiet. In the future there will be a law passed in Europe that requires married men to be at home by 9.00 p.m. on Thursdays or else they will be fined 500 euros. There will also be tax breaks for people who choose not to live alone, and pet owners will be taxed if the owners live alone as an incentive for people to have children rather than child substitutes.

Of course, there is an irony here. We are increasingly leading separate lives, and in the future it will become much easier to physically isolate oneself from other people at home or at work -- which, for some people, will be the same place.

At the same time we are becoming increasingly connected. One of the most popular Websites in the UK is Friends Reunited. MySpace (now Rupert's Space) in the US has well over 100 million members and regularly receives more hits per month than Google. Both Websites simply seek to put like-minded individuals and groups in touch with one another, but maybe something more profound is happening. To a large degree, the history of the next fifty years will be about the relationship between technology and people. Moreover, there is an inherent instability built into this relationship because technology changes fast and exponentially, while people change slowly and incrementally. What this means, in effect, is that the more technology gets embedded into our lives, the more we will run away from it. As a result, there will be a greater demand for human-to-human physical contact and direct experiences.