Visual GPS: Technology

Trends / Technology
Sally Anscombe
1011756246
Getty Images Creative Insights Team
Feb 24, 2020
Developed with creative challenges in mind, Getty Images Visual GPS helps you navigate through the crowded visual landscape, showing you what's important to today's consumers, what kind of visual content engages them, and what leads them to make decisions. Through our unique research offering, we have found several factors that inform and impact decision‑making. We're calling them Forces because we've found that they're a powerful influence on the way people behave. In this article, you will learn about one of these Forces, Technology.
What defines the Technology Force?
Technology’s all around us and it’s constantly evolving, making it a tough concept to stay current with. Physically, it can range from the latest mobile app to advances in electric vehicles. But it’s not necessarily devices that drive decisions—it’s people’s relationship to tech and the way they choose to interact with it that will determine what connects.

What our market research tells us people care about. 
With increasingly busy lives, people desire more efficiency and turn to technology to help them get it—allowing us to plan better, do more, choose well, record it all, and share at will. At the same time, there’s a fear that privacy is at risk and concern about becoming lost in our screens at the expense of our relationships. The goal for many is finding the balance and ability to check‑in, tune out, and even show off when wanted. More technology is inevitable, though consumers want the power to access the relevant and ignore what’s not.

"Of all the driving forces in people’s
lives today, technology is arguably
the one that creates the greatest
amount of dynamic tension."
‑Getty Images Creative Insights Team

How Technology is expressed visually
The following example is just one of the expressions we uncovered representing the promise and the concerns of Technology that consumers most identify with—as interpreted by our visual experts.

Go ahead, sit close to the screen
We’re attached to our phones and they are omnipresent in the frame across all visual content. The selfie could be called a cliché of phone usage, but it’s a common social behavior seen in everyday life. It’s important to acknowledge this in the images, videos, and illustrations you select. We have found that there are a number of approaches to take when visualizing Technology. Check out these Curated Boards to see how they are expressed:

1. Show technology as the center of the action: Technology Bringing People Together Gallery

2. Show how technology has brought people together: Technology at the center of our lives Gallery

3. Use graphic illustrations that represent the connections that technology enables: Technology & Connection Gallery
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