Imagine, if you can, the year 2026. God knows who will be president. Kim Kardashian will feel, increasingly, like a fever dream of tight clothes, Hulu, and contouring. Taylor Swift will probably still be on her Eras tour. Up to 90 percent of content on the internet could be generated by AI. And that last one I didn’t just imagine — it’s an actual estimate from experts.
As for the regular folk like you and me: Maybe you will have thrown your phone into the sea in attempt to both reclaim your concentration and give the big middle finger to Mark Zuckerberg (who, in 2026, will still be working on his bod and wearing tighter shirts). Maybe you will have simply fantasized about throwing your phone into the sea, so overburdened did you feel by email, Slack, texts, spam calls, social media, and whatever else that you struggled to concentrate on the things you both needed to focus on — making that power point, meeting a deadline — and simply wanted to — watching a movie. One thing you surely won’t be — or at least, the world’s best trend forecasters are sure you won’t be — is rested.
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