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''Future Shock'' is a book written by the futurist Alvin Toffler in 1970. In the book, Toffler defines the term "''future shock''" as a certain psychological state of individuals and entire societies. His shortest definition for the term is a personal perception of "too much change in too short a period of time". The book, which became an international bestseller, grew out of an article "The Future as a Way of Life" in ''Horizon'' magazine, Summer 1965 issue.〔Toffler, Alvin, "The Future as a Way of Life", Horizon magazine, Summer 1965, Vol VII, Num 3〕〔(Horizon magazine: master index" )〕〔Eisenhart, Mary, ("Alvin And Heidi Toffler: Surfing The Third Wave: On Life And Work In The Information Age" ), MicroTimes #118, January 3, 1994〕〔("Alvin Toffler: still shocking after all these years: New Scientist meets the controversial futurologist" ), New Scientist, 19 March 1994, pp. 22-25. "What led you to write Future Shock? -- While covering Congress, it occurred to us that big technological and social changes were occurring in the United States, but that the political system seemed totally blind to their existence. Between 1955 and 1960, the birth control pill was introduced, television became universalized, commercial jet travel came into being and a whole raft of other technological events occurred. Having spent several years watching the political process, we came away feeling that 99 per cent of what politicians do is keep systems running that were laid in place by previous generations of politicians. Our ideas came together in 1965 in an article called 'The future as a way of life', which argued that change was going to accelerate and that the speed of change could induce disorientation in lots of people. We coined the phrase 'future shock' as an analogy to the concept of culture shock. With future shock you stay in one place but your own culture changes so rapidly that it has the same disorienting effect as going to another culture"〕 The book has sold over 6 million copies and has been widely translated. A documentary film based on the book was released in 1972 with Orson Welles as on-screen narrator. ==Term== Toffler argued that society is undergoing an enormous structural change, a revolution from an industrial society to a "super-industrial society". This change overwhelms people. He believed the accelerated rate of technological and social change left people disconnected and suffering from "shattering stress and disorientation"—future shocked. Toffler stated that the majority of social problems are symptoms of future shock. In his discussion of the components of such shock, he popularized the term "''information overload''." His analysis of the phenomenon of information overload is continued in his later publications, especially ''The Third Wave'' and ''Powershift''. In the introduction to an essay entitled "Future Shlock" in his book, ''Conscientious Objections'', Neil Postman wrote: "Sometime about the middle of 1963, my colleague Charles Weingartner and I delivered in tandem an address to the National Council of Teachers of English. In that address we used the phrase "future shock" as a way of describing the social paralysis induced by rapid technological change. To my knowledge, Weingartner and I were the first people ever to use it in a public forum. Of course, neither Weingartner nor I had the brains to write a book called ''Future Shock'', and all due credit goes to Alvin Toffler for having recognized a good phrase when one came along" (p. 162). 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Future Shock」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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