OK, so this doesn’t apply to all millennials (also known as people younger than me, born sometime since the 1990s), but, according to Wonkblog in the Washington Post, this is a bona fide trend:
A large contingent of millennials are uninterested in breakfast cereal because eating it means using a bowl, and bowls don’t clean themselves (or get tossed in the garbage). Bowls, kids these days groan, have to be cleaned.
Cereal isn’t the only food suffering from a national trend toward laziness. Coffee has suffered a similar fate. Despite talk of a third wave of coffee, which values quality above all else, and basks in artisanal rather than effortless methods of preparation, Americans still covet convenience above all else.
“Convenience is the one thing that’s really changing trends these days,” Howard Telford, an industry analyst at market research firm Euromonitor, said last year.
This trend might help to explain Whole Food’s much derided decision to sell pre-peeled oranges.
If only nature would find a way to cover these oranges so we didn't need to waste so much plastic on them. pic.twitter.com/00YECaHB4D
— Nathalie Gordon (@awlilnatty) March 3, 2016
Of course, there are products that are bucking the trend of convenience by making tasks more difficult to accomplish. Film cameras, vinyl records, and even typewriters are enjoying a significant increase in sales after years of decline. But these retro products are niche. In the mass market, convenience looks set to be the trend that matters.
Update: The best response to this post so far…
@Hotfoot_Design Were doomed.
— Andy Diggle (@andydiggle) March 7, 2016
