Twenty years of convergence folded almost everything into the phone, a device that, as the Good Screens Report from It's Nice That puts it, does everything but no one thing particularly well. With research from UT Austin showing that the mere presence of a smartphone in the room reduces cognitive capacity, single-purpose, repairable and privacy-first devices are finding a new audience among Gen Z. Divergence is back as a design argument, and the object is becoming the place where a different relationship with attention gets built.

On algorithmic feeds like Reels and For You, Sprout Social's platform data shows that in 60% of cases, more than 70% of views come from people who don't follow the account. In a separate survey of 2,286 consumers, buyers leaned toward a niche creator's recommendation over a mega influencer's, 21% to 15%. Reach and following have come apart, and discovery now does the work that accumulated audience used to do.

In an opinion piece for Dezeen, Ellie Foster looks at the interiors products now marketed as designed for neurodivergent people and finds that some are existing ranges relaunched in new colorways. The audience is far from niche, with neurodivergent people estimated at 15 to 20% of the global population. Inclusion is reaching the marketing of interiors ahead of the products themselves, along the route sustainability took before it.

A study reported by Packaging Insights ran four experiments on what makes people more willing to sort packaging properly. Willingness rose with how easy the pack made sorting look, rather than with brand effort, innovation or perceived value, and the effect was stronger where recycling policy was looser. Disposal is moving into the design brief, with the pack expected to do its last bit of persuading at home, over the bin, long after the sale.

A Mastercard survey of 26,000 parents and teenagers, reported by Retail Dive, looks at where young people now turn for product advice. Nearly a third of teens (31%) trust an AI's recommendation over a friend's, and 23% trust it over their parents'. Word of mouth, the oldest channel in marketing, is moving into private conversations with a machine, out of earshot of the brands being talked about.