[This Week's Books] 'Kind Trend Gossip 2025' and More

Friendly Trend Gossip 2025

Twenty members of the Insight Strategy Headquarters, a think tank of the advertising agency Innocean, analyzed the trends of 2025. Through four themes?play, daily life, the world, and marketing?and 16 keywords, they read the rapidly changing flow of the world and provide insights on how to utilize and respond to it. The 16 keywords include ‘Chugu ME,’ which involves setting one’s own ideal type to move toward a better life, and ‘Meme Code,’ which covers the phenomenon where internet memes have established themselves as a new form of expression for Generation Z and evolved into tools for forming social discourse. (Written by Kim Nayeon et al./Innocean)

Ipsos Market Trend 2025

Based on vast data and cases surveyed by Ipsos, a global research company with clients in 90 countries worldwide, this work analyzes major social changes and consumption trends from various angles. It is expected that in 2025, the consumption trend of ‘Me-Maxing,’ which aims to make oneself the highest value, will be further intensified. It also predicts that many people will move away from the trend of connecting to countless contents and will seek to organize unnecessary content, stimuli, and human relationships. (Written by Eom Gihong and Yoo Eunhye/Hankyung)

Breaking Through Science

This book systematically explores how science has provided practical answers from the dawn of civilization to the complex and unpredictable modern world. According to the author, there have been five inflection points in human history: ancient times, the scientific revolution marked by the heliocentric theory, the industrial revolution, and others. At each of these five turning points, science developed through repeated failures and advances. Through the keywords question, challenge, conquest, limit, and frontier at these five turning points, the history of science is examined, and it considers whether a singularity where science and technology surpass human intelligence will come, and what the future of humanity might look like. (Written by Yong Munjung/The Quest)