The Expected WorldEXPIRES: 2000
WRITTEN: 1970
In the three short decades between now and the twenty-first century, millions of ordinary, psychologically normal people will face an abrupt collision with the future. Citizens of the world's richest and most technically advanced nations will find it increasingly painful to keep up with the incessant demand for change.
Annotation
Toffler coined 'future shock' as a diagnosis of accelerating change. His prediction about psychological distress from information overload proved eerily accurate: by 2000, the internet had begun transforming daily life, and within another decade, smartphones and social media would create exactly the perpetual adaptation crisis he described.
What Actually Happened
Information overload, digital fatigue, and anxiety about technological change became widely recognized phenomena. 'Technostress' entered the clinical vocabulary.
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