Cocooning
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cocooning is the name given to the trend that sees individuals socializing less and retreating into their home more. Individuals tend to stay away from society and lack in social confidence leading to 'cocooning'. The term was coined in the 1990s by Faith Popcorn a trend forecaster and marketing consultant. Popcorn identified cocooning as a commercially significant trend that would lead to, among other things, stay-at-home electronic shopping.
Since Popcorn coined the term, the trend has continued. The creation of the World Wide Web (WWW), home entertainment technology, advances in communication technology (cellphones, PDAs, and Blackberries) which allow "work-at-home" options, and demographic changes have made cocooning an increasingly attractive option. This is also known as e-cocooning.
William A. Sherden in The Fortune Sellers: The Big Business of Buying and Selling Predictions (ISBN 0-471-35844-4) takes a skeptical view of Popcorn's ideas about Cocooning, among other things, and concludes she was simply wrong on several key issues.
[edit] Cocooning in fiction
A chapter in the book "Haunted" by Chuck Palahniuk has a character named Lady Baglady. She produces a short story called 'Slumming' in which cocooning is mentioned as an ill of modern society.
