Future shock by alvin toffler

1. TITLE: FUTURE SHOCK
AUTHOR: Alvin Toffler
PUBLISHER: Bantam Books, Inc. a National General Company
DATE PUBLISHED: August 1971
NUMBER OF PAGES: 286 Pages
SUMMARY
Future Shock discusses change and what happens to people, how they do and don’t adapt. Even
though the book was first published in 1970, it is certainly appropriate for the changes of the
ages of technology. Alvin Toffler a world – renowned scholar and futurist, he is the author of
highly influential works read in over 50 countries. The book was written about the future and
that future is now. Massive changes result in stress and disorientation, especially when these
changes take place in a short period of time. Man must cope with these changes and Toffler’s
point is that there isn’t much known about the mechanisms in the book. The book is not about
stories or events, its about the concept of change, and how humans adapt to it. This is a book
about what happens to people when they are overwhelmed by change. It is about the ways in
which we adapt or fail to adapt to the future. What joins all these – in the book as in life – is the
roaring current of change, a current so powerful today that it overturns institutions, shifts our
values and shrivels our roots. Change is the process by which the future invades our lives, and it
is important to look at it closely, not merely from the grand perspectives of history, but also
from the vantage point of the living, breathing individuals who experience it. This book is
designed to increase the future-consciousness of its reader.
The degree to which the reader, after finishing the book, finds himself thinking about,
speculating about, or trying to anticipate future events, will provide one measure of its
effectiveness. Today we are in a state of hyper drive, and I think reading this book can give you
a clear insight on what change is and how to adapt to it. Future Shock is about the present.
Future Shock is about what is happening today to people and groups who are overwhelmed by
change. Change affects our product, communities, organizations – even our patterns of
friendship and love. It is describes the emerging global civilization; tomorrow’s family life, the
rise of new businesses, subcultures, life-styles, and human relationships – all of them
temporary. Book contains the power to intrigue, provoke, frighten, encourage and above all it
can change everyone who reads it.
SALIENT POINTS
Future Shock describe the shattering stress and disorientation that are induce in individuals by
subjecting them to too much change in too short a time. Toffler’s point is that the tactics of the
past will not be successful in the future. If future shock is to be avoided, society must control
the accelerating thrust and must make plans for the future and the changes it will bring. There
should be studies of the different scenarios that might exist in the future and the effects these
scenarios will have on values and lifestyles. Different models and simulations allow people to
study future scenarios and to try out different lifestyles. Without some kind of preparation and
control, society will not be able to deal with the future and will suffer from future shock. It is
not necessary for future shock to take place if the proper measures are taken. Much of the
book consists of the results of various research studies with a paragraph of two devoted to
each. Many of these studies deal with man’s ability to change and reaction to change. The

2. various changes experienced in life produced stress and this leads to a strain on the bodies
defence mechanisms and results in illness. There is a certain amount of change that men can
handle and this is called the adaptive range. If the amount of change is below this level, the
result is boredom and people seeking more excitement in life. If the level of change is above the
adaptive range, man’s coping mechanisms breaks down and the result is destruction and
irrationality. This is what Toffler says future shock will consist of it society does not develop
methods to deal with the changes.
Toffler does a good job in explaining how and why people select the lifestyles that they select.
Adherence to a particular lifestyle makes the individual a member of a subcult and cuts down
on the number of choices and decisions the individual has to make. It avoids the problems of
over-selection and over-stimulation. Major life decisions occur when the individual changes his
lifestyle. This involves having to confront all of the choices involved in the selection of a new
lifestyle with a new set of values to adopt. A large portion of the book is devoted to the study of
relationship, with the five major kinds of relationship being defined and discussed. The result of
change is shortening of the different relationship with a shift from permanence to
impermanence. Relationships are now characterized by transience. This causes a change in
values and places a greater strain on man to adopt. In dealing with the future, at least for the
purpose at hand, it is more important to be imaginative and insightful than to be one hundred
percent right. Theories do not have to be right to be enormously useful. Even error has its uses.
WHAT IS THE RELATION OF THE BOOK
Super-industrialization era, people are running blindly in the overpowering thrust of
accelerating change, thereby leaving everything behind to which they were earlier attached.
Transience, its being the key word, man’s relationship with the things are highly temporary.
Organization is more lateral. Knowledge is less permanent as weekly and one shot magazines
are in. In arts also the relationship with symbolic imaginary are growing more and more
temporary. All these frequent changes demand new level of adaptability and they stage a new
set of devastating social illness - Future Shock. Novelty, if transience is the first key to
understand the society then novelty is the second. Day by day difference is decreasing between
familiar and unfamiliar, between routine and non-routine and between predictable and non-
predictable. Diversity, when diversity converges with transience and novelty it rocket our
society to historic crisis of adaptation which threaten millions with adaptive breakdown. This
breakdown is Future Shock. Physical and psychological dimension, author then describes the
physical and psychological dimensions of adaptability. Author express future shock as both
physical and psychological distress that arises from an overload of the human organism’s
physical adaptively systems and its decision making processes. How to survive, by consciously
accessing our own lifestyle, building personal stability zone, situational grouping and half way
houses to adjust in the super industrialization. Train young people in the perspectives and
techniques of scientific futurism, inviting them to share in the exciting Venture of mapping
probable future.