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While a four-day work week may sound too good to be true, more U.S. businesses are making this dream a reality. It’s still a long way from becoming a mainstream trend, but there is some evidence that it probably should be. A recent study in Japan, a country where people are famous for working a lot more than 40 hours a week, showed that giving employees a three-day weekend could boost productivity by 40%.

Americans, who have long been among the most mobile people in the world, are moving less, according to data compiled by the Census Bureau. Only 9.8% of Americans moved in the year ending in March, the smallest percentage since 1947.

Among the reasons why Americans are staying put is soaring rent in major cities, making it more difficult for young people to start careers. In recent years, home price increases have outstripped wage growth.

Astrology, paganism, magic, mysticism, and other spiritual beliefs appear to be enjoying a surge in popularity not seen since the 1970s. According to a 2017 Pew Research Center poll, about 30% of American adults believe in astrology. About 60% of adults hold at least one of the four “New Age” beliefs analyzed by Pew: Participants were asked if they believe spiritual energy can be located in physical things, or in psychics, reincarnation or astrology.

This development is likely due in large part to the availability of information on the internet, including social media. Some have suggested that turning to these once-fringe beliefs or otherwise questioning the established order is a response to living in a world of increasing uncertainty.

Cannabidiol, or CBD — an active but not psychoactive compound found in marijuana — has been in the news a lot in 2019. Its potential health benefits — ranging from treating epilepsy symptoms to relieving anxiety — have made CBD products very popular. About one in seven U.S. adults say they use them, according to a Gallup poll. About 40% take them to relieve pain. The next most common use is to treat anxiety.

CBD products with extremely low concentrations of the psychoactive compound THC are no longer considered “controlled substances” under federal law. But the FDA is still conducting research into CBD products’ effects, and some states still restrict them.

An international team of scientists has determined that Greenland is losing ice much faster than previously thought — seven times faster than in the 1990s. The rate of ice melt has climbed to 254 billion tons a year from 33 billion in the 1990s. This is much faster than what was forecast in climate-science reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This will mean an increase in sea levels, adding to the risk of higher storm surges from events such as hurricanes as well as the inundation of coastal cities.

One person has raised awareness about the climate change crisis more than any other this year. Greta Thunberg is now Time’s 2019 Person of the Year. Several moments, including “how dare you” and “you have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words” from her UN speech, as well as reactions to it, were in the news for weeks.

Data monetization, or the act of act of generating discernible economic advantages from data sources, is spreading beyond finance, marketing, and advertising to sectors such as car manufacturing and health care.

Data strategies will become essential to all areas of the economy as the cost of data declines. Companies can determine market, demographic, and behavioral shifts from cloud, big data, and mobile tools, and adjust corporate strategy accordingly.

Tensions in the Democratic Party are rising. Younger members of the party in the House of Representatives, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Abdullahi Omar, are attempting to move the Democrats in a more progressive direction in areas such as combating climate change, higher taxes on the wealthy, and Israeli-Arab relations. This has put them at odds with the older, more moderate leadership, including Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senator Joe Biden. Ocasio-Cortez and other progressive Democrats were more aggressive than Pelosi in wanting to impeach President Donald Trump.

Disney launched a streaming service in early November, joining a crowded field of rivals such as Netflix, Apple TV Plus, and HBO Max. Disney priced its monthly services below some of its rivals and also forged an agreement with Verizon to provide the cable carrier’s customers unlimited access to its offerings for a year.

Disney Plus was created as the dedicated location for streaming blockbusters from the Star Wars and Marvel franchises, and offerings from Pixar and National Geographic. The Star Wars spinoff The Mandalorian, featuring Baby Yoda, is a massive hit.

Though fermentation of food, a process of controlled decay, is not new, the fermenting of products from coffee to ketchup became a big deal in 2019. One reason was the proliferation of books on the subject, such as “The Noma Guide to Fermentation” by David Zilber.

Fermentation can help society manage food waste and save energy. In the United States, as much as 40% of food winds up in a landfill. If consumers learned fermenting techniques, they could preserve their food without having to cook or freeze it, thus saving energy.

More people are skipping the physical gym for one at home. Vying with home-based machines like treadmills and Peloton bikes are wall-mounted devices such as Mirror and Tonal that provide all manner of workout videos. For the space-challenged, there is WalkingPad, a foldable treadmill that can fit under your bed. More affordable at-home workout options include Obé (Our Body Electric), which live streams workout videos.

Although the United States posted a record number of foreign visitors in 2018 — 80 million — the nation’s travel industry sees warning flags. That’s because America’s share of the international travel market slipped to 11.7% in 2018 from 13.7% three years earlier, according to the Commerce Department’s National Travel and Tourism Office. And the agency also expects that figure to slip to 10.9% by 2022. Experts point to several factors for the market share dropoff, including a stronger dollar, which makes it more expensive for foreigners to travel to the U.S.; a trade war with China, where a rising number of visitors to America are coming from; and safety concerns following recent mass shootings.

Cancel culture is a social media-fueled phenomenon in which someone is abruptly removed from influence by judgmental people, regardless of whether the judgment has merit or not. Or at least this is the goal. Despite the mass public shaming, some of its victims are able to recover and regain the love of their fans.

One of the most famous people to be “canceled” is Taylor Swift. #TaylorSwiftIsCanceled was trending in 2016 after she was branded as a liar for saying Kanye West did not give her the heads up for using her name in a song, something Kim Kardashian said was not true.

Former President Barack Obama weighed in on the subject in October during an interview about youth activism at the Obama Foundation summit. He voiced concern about “woke” culture and the way people are called out on social media. “This idea of purity and you’re never compromised and you’re always politically ‘woke’ and all that stuff,” Mr. Obama said. “You should get over that quickly. The world is messy; there are ambiguities.”

Four years after bans on same-sex marriage were struck down by the Supreme Court, and 50 years after the Stonewall riots in New York City launched the modern gay rights movement, legal experts in 2019 took another look at whether LGBTQ people were being adequately protected by federal law. A recent study conducted at UCLA found that gay and bisexual people reported much higher rates of being bullied, fired, or denied a job or promotion than heterosexual people.

Country met rap in the song “Old Town Road,” pairing Rapper Lil Nas X with country singer Billy Ray Cyrus in one of the more curious music collaborations in recent memory. The song was No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a record 19 weeks, as well as the No. 1 earworm of the year. Another recent pairing of music genres was when British pop star teamed with Italian opera tenor Andrea Bocelli to record the song “Perfect.”

Beverage companies are scrambling to respond to a market in which younger, more health-conscious consumers are drinking less alcohol. IWSR, the alcohol beverage database, said liquor consumption declined 1.6% around the world in 2018. Beverage merchants introduced options such as alcohol-free sparkling drinks aimed at adults as well as alcohol-free beers. IWSR forecast an 8.8% increase in consumption of no-alcohol beer and 2.8% for low-alcohol beer. Consumption of no-alcohol still wine is predicted to rise 13.5%, and low-alcohol still wine at 5.6%. No-alcohol mixed drink consumption is predicted to increase at 8.6%

Jeans are always in fashion although the way in which they are worn varies every now and then. Now is the time for jeans with holes, which sometimes even cost more than jeans with no holes. Celebrities are regularly seen on social media with their bare knees and thighs sticking out from under tight jeans.

Last year was strong for initial public offerings for the first 10 months. It slowed down in November 2018 and did not really recover. 2019, which has been packed with unicorns, which are fast-growing and privately held companies valued at over $1 billion, has not been going as well as expected for some. A few startups called off their IPOs — most notably We Work — or pushed them back. Uber and Peloton both debuted on the market with stocks opening lower than their initial listing price. Uber has traded below its initial price since May.

IPO activity has declined significantly in the first half of 2019, according to a report by Baker McKenzie, a multinational law firm. Globally, 32% less capital was raised, even though the North American region saw an increase of 13%. Just 10 mega IPOs were recorded in the first six months of 2019 compared to 18 in the same period the previous year. A total of $69.8 billion were raised through June across 514 deals, the lowest amount since 2016.

It seems like everywhere you turn someone is drinking White Claw hard seltzer. The low-alcohol and lightly fruit-flavored drink is so popular that in September the company announced a nationwide shortage. The drink’s popularity led to the summer season being renamed “the White Claw Summer.”

Sales are up about 250% in 2019 compared with 2018, according to Nielsen. The company says it has already made $638 million this year, and sales may even top $1.5 billion by the end of 2019.

The leopard-print midi skirt was definitely the trend of the summer, but it survived beyond the warm season. One company ran out of its version of the skirt four times. While it seems like thousands of women just woke up one morning and decided to buy a leopard skirt, the trend actually started in the spring of 2018 when Réalisation Par, a clothing label, posted it on Instagram.

Fashion and beauty trends come and go with every season. Like it or not, 2019 has been the year of the thick eyebrow. Articles with instructions on how to get thicker brows and how to grow full brows naturally are everywhere. There are also plenty of products on the market for making eyebrows look thicker.

Cigarette smoking among U.S. adults is at an all-time low — 13.7% in 2018, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But smoking e-cigarettes is on the rise, especially among young people. A recent Gallup survey found that 20% of 18- to 29-year-olds vape regularly, more than twice the national average for all age groups.

2019 was marked by an outbreak of lung injury associated with the use of e-cigarettes. At least 47 deaths and 2,290 lung injuries have been confirmed by the CDC as a result of vaping by the end of November. The agency has identified vitamin E acetate, an additive in some THC-containing e-cigarettes, as the likely cause of the lung injuries.

Demand for plant-based meat substitutes has grown considerably in recent years and 2019 is no exception. Following a vegan diet for health, animal rights and climate change reasons are among the drivers of this trend. In 2019, retail sales of plant-based foods have increased by 11% in the U.S. alone over 2018, making it a $4.5 billion industry, according to a report by the Plant-Based Food Association.

Plant-based burgers are becoming available in supermarkets, and Blue Apron has recently introduced Beyond Meat into its home meal kits.

2019 may be the year of women in politics. From Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who is becoming the face of millennials in Congress, to the six women running for president (now four, after Kamala Harris and Kristen Gillibrand suspended their campaigns), to the record number of women running for public office in general. Chicago, the third largest city in the country by population, made history by electing its first African-American female mayor, who is also gay.

The increasing number of female politicians is not just an American phenomenon. Finland is now run by women under the age of 35. The new prime minister, Sanna Marin, is the world’s youngest sitting head of government.

Chefs all over the country are making dishes from scrap ingredients. Zero-waste cooking was identified as the third biggest trend of 2019, according to the 2019 culinary forecast by the National Restaurant Association. Everyday food scraps, damaged produce, and leftovers are turned into culinary delights.

The zero-waste trend has been gaining popularity all over the world. France is at the top of the zero-waste ranking in the Food Sustainability Index, followed by Argentina and Luxembourg. In France, for example, grocery stores are banned from throwing out food that can still be consumed.

Stand-up scooters are no longer just a fun toy for kids. Electric scooters can now be found almost everywhere, especially in big cities. Several startups have even developed apps that allow potential riders to find and unlock scooters with their phones. Uber and Lyft launched scooter services in 2018. The appeal of e-scooters may be obvious to some — who wants to sit in a car on a street that is basically a parking lot during rush hour?