What's Next

They say in finance that past performance is no guarantee of future results. Still, it's worth looking backwards to try and learn from what happened, and use that as a window into the future. By that metric, if the past 12 months tell us anything, it tells us that the new year will consist of more puzzles, we'll be switching salad dressings, and we're moving our desks out of the corner and towards the window. Oh, and we need batteries. Lots of batteries.

Let's start with puzzles. Perhaps born out of the pandemic need to find things to do on our own, games and puzzles continued their growth. As an industry, the electronic gaming industry seems to have no ceiling: global gaming is estimated to be worth $321 billion by 2026. To be sure, the big money is in the video variety, with sophisticated titles like "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2" and "Elden Ring" generating millions of dollars in 2022. But if you rank games not by revenue but by number of plays, you might be best served by looking at Google search results to how many are looking for tips and tricks. And there, the number one term searched for the past 12 months was "Wordle." Note that while you may like "adept," "clamp" or "audio" as your starting guess, researchers at MIT say a 15th century helmet is your best shot. Play "salet" and you can usually win within just 3.42117 guesses.

On to condiments, and once again crowd sourcing tells us a lot about ourselves. Perhaps best placed to inform in this area is Uber Eats, with 81 million users the most popular food delivery service. And what were we collectively asking them to bring to our door? According to the "2022 Uber Eats Cravings Report" the number one delivery combo was burritos and cheese. That finding is echoed in a similar report from rival Grubhub, who said they delivered 4 million of the Tex-Mex staple. As to condiments, according to the Uber report, "Customer's desire for ranch dressing has dramatically dwindled. While pre-pandemic requests for 'ranch,' 'extra ranch' and 'side of ranch' topped the charts for most requested special instructions on Uber Eats, these requests now don't even crack the top 20."

As to our homes, the National Association of Realtors surveys what we are doing in design, furnishing and style. Driven by the pandemic, there was a huge movement towards home offices. As a matter of practicality these were tucked away in corners, under stairs and in repurposed closets. But as work from home as gone from an emergency one-and-done necessity to a regular thing, the survey finds that we can't stand to be stuck in these "cloffices" any more. And so the trend in 2022 was to move our desks out of the closet towards the window, and hang the coats back where they belong. Now if only we could start a movement not to have unmade beds in the rear of the Zoom shot.

Finally, no matter who you are, where you live, your politics, class, race, gender, sexual orientation or any other demographic data, you likely shop at Amazon. With more than 12 million products, it is easily the largest online retail store worldwide. The market research company eMarketer reports that Amazon has nearly half of the entire eCommerce market in the United States, edging out Walmart and eBay. That makes them the perfect proxy to reveal what we all need. And if you look at the not one, not two, but top five products across all categories on the site, all are batteries. Amazon basic AA and AAA models in various packs beat out Crocs (number one in shoes), mascara (number one in beauty and personal care) and Apple AirPods (number one in electronics). As Henry Kissinger said, power may be a great aphrodisiac, but you gotta have fresh cells.

There's more that 2022 has taught us. Men are wearing more black loafers, and police departments are using more electric vehicles. Sweatsuits have gone upscale, and telemedicine is here to stay. The bigger question is will any of these trends continue into 2023. As you read this, the tallying has already begun. Have you logged in to order your first burrito of the year?

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Marc Wollin of Bedford is hoping to wear brighter socks in 2023. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.