Description

Future shock: the shattering stress and disorientation that we induce in individuals by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time. Journalist Toffler coined the term in a Horizon article in 1965 and became so fascinated with the concept he spent the next five years visiting people and places concerned with different aspects of change and coping behavior. The result is a significant compendium of "soft" futurology - the human concomitants (personal and social) of "hard" technological progress. Work patterns, consumer patterns, leisure activities, living arrangements, friendships, family relations - all will be affected drastically by "abrupt collision with the future." Toffler throws out some sure-fire scare topics - Rent-a-Person, The Pre-Designed Body, The Cyborgs Among Us, Bio-Parents and Pro-Parents - but for the most part he finds enough potential shock value in the more immediately real transformations in life style already in evidence in the super-industrial societies (e.g., the rapid turnover of people, places, and things which induces minimum involvement and a throwaway mentality). The most frightening fact of the future will not be 1984 regimentation but a paralyzing diversity: of products, experiences, and social groups. In Toffler's view these changes are not necessarily for the worse; in any event, they are inevitable. Toffler diagnoses both the physical and psychological dimensions of future shock and offers various strategies for meeting the future and making it ours. A consistently interesting forecast, original for its breadth rather than its depth, this is certainly a book with a future.