future shock

First in print on this day in 1970, the ethnographical treatise by futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler is summarised in the personal experience of too much change over too little time, arguing that society is undergoing an overwhelming and estranging structural change that engenders “shattering stress and disorientation.” Aside from introducing the concept of “information overload,” the book further limns the features of the Information Era to include a throw-away culture, decreasing ownership in favour of sharing and renting, redundancy and frequent career change and digital nomadism. In 1972, after its best-seller success, a documentary was produced, narrated by Orson Welles.