We Are the Future-Shocked
Living in the World Alvin Toffler Predicted
More than 50 years after Future Shock, the world feels more unsteady than ever. Here’s what Toffler got right — and why it matters now.
In 1972, just as I was heading off to university to study economics and social psychology, I picked up a book that would quietly shape the way I viewed the world: Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock. I must have come across it by chance, but its core ideas stuck with me. Toffler warned that the accelerating pace of change — technological, social, psychological — would overwhelm not just individuals but whole societies. His phrase “too much change in too short a time” lodged itself in my memory.
Years later, working in the early computer industry with companies like HP and IBM, I found myself living through the very shifts Toffler had described. I vividly remember selling a large laser printer to a department store in the early 1980s. It needed a £150,000 HP3000 minicomputer to run it. Today, printers are practically disposable. The money’s all in the ink. That single example captures just how fast — and how far — things have moved.
Now, with the rise of populist politics, social unrest, and the sense that the ground is shifting under our feet once more, I find myself returning to Future Shock. Which of Toffler’s predictions came true? And more importantly — what can we learn from them?
Who Was Alvin Toffler?
Alvin Toffler (1928–2016) was an American writer and futurist best known for Future Shock (1970), followed by The Third Wave (1980) and Powershift(1990). He started as a labour reporter and later became an associate editor at Fortune, before turning to the bigger picture: what happens when society changes faster than people can adapt?
He was one of the first to predict the digital revolution, the rise of the knowledge economy, and the psychological cost of living in a world that never stops shifting. What made him different wasn’t just his ability to spot trends — it was his concern for what they meant for ordinary people trying to live meaningful lives.
A Few Words That Still Ring True
Toffler had a knack for capturing complex ideas in short, striking lines. A few that feel especially relevant today:
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
“Change is not merely necessary to life — it is life.”
“Future shock is the dizzying disorientation brought on by the premature arrival of the future.”
“Technology feeds on itself. Technology makes more technology possible.”
These aren’t just soundbites — they’re reminders that staying grounded in a fast-moving world takes more than just information. It takes resilience.
Too Much, Too Fast
Toffler talked about machines that would not only replace manual labour but begin to learn, adapt, and even make decisions.
“Tomorrow’s machines will be capable of learning… The worker of the future may find himself employed by a machine.”
At the time, it sounded far-fetched. But now, many of us are already living it — with tools that organise our calendars, track our habits, suggest our purchases, even finish our sentences. The future he imagined didn’t arrive all at once, but it has arrived.
He also coined the phrase “accelerative thrust” — the idea that change was speeding up, not gradually but exponentially. Technology was the engine, and society’s institutions were struggling to keep pace.
And then there’s the human cost. Toffler spoke of “succession stress” — the psychological pressure of living through wave after wave of change. That’s not theory anymore. It’s real. It’s lived. And we’re seeing the effects in everything from burnout to breakdowns.
The Age of Information Overload
Toffler warned that having too much information could be just as paralysing as having too little. He described “decision stress” — the exhaustion that comes from facing a constant stream of choices, updates, interruptions.
Fast forward to today, and we live in an always-on world of pings, alerts, headlines, hot takes, and rabbit holes. More information hasn’t necessarily made us wiser. Often, it just makes us tired.
Disposable Lives, Disposable Institutions
One of Toffler’s most striking observations was about the rise of transience. Not just disposable products — but disposable relationships, disposable jobs, disposable values.
He saw that the old anchors of life — marriage, faith, steady work — were loosening. We were being trained to keep moving, to stay flexible, to let go.
Flexibility has its benefits. But it comes at a cost. The deeper sense of belonging, continuity, and identity we once took for granted is now far harder to find. That rootlessness is something many people feel but can’t quite name.
The Backlash: Nostalgia and Burnout
Toffler predicted that when people became overwhelmed, they would react in one of two ways: try to adapt, or retreat into the past.
That second reaction is everywhere now — in politics, media, culture. A longing for “the way things used to be” — even if that past is romanticised or never existed in the first place.
At the same time, the stress of constant change is showing up in more personal ways: anxiety, disconnection, exhaustion. Especially among younger generations, who have never known a slower world.
Why It Still Matters
Toffler wasn’t just forecasting gadgets — he was asking bigger questions about what kind of society we were building, and what kind of people we needed to become to live in it.
He believed our schools should teach flexibility, not rote memorisation. That our cities should evolve with the people in them. That our politics should be more responsive, not more rigid.
Above all, he believed we needed to prepare not for stability, but for flux — for living well amid change.
Looking Ahead
The future isn’t something that just happens to us. It’s something we shape — through choices, values, relationships, and imagination.
Toffler never claimed to have all the answers. But he helped us see the problem more clearly: the gap between the speed of change and the pace of human adaptation. And that gap is where so much of our modern anxiety lives.
So here’s the challenge: not just to keep up, but to step back. To ask: What matters now? What’s worth holding onto? And how do we build lives — and a world — that can bend with change rather than break under it?
We are the future-shocked.
But we’re also the future-makers.
Author’s note: I first read Future Shock in 1972, just before heading off to university. After decades working in the tech industry, I now find myself returning to Toffler’s words with fresh eyes — and a growing sense that his warning was not only right, but unfinished.Be clear, be confident and don’t overthink it. The beauty of your story is that it’s going to continue to evolve and your site can evolve with it. Your goal should be to make it feel right for right now. Later will take care of itself. It always does.