In 1970, the futurist Alvin Toffler wrote his landmark book
entitled "Future Shock." In his book, Toffler
argued that society was undergoing an enormous structural change, a
revolution from industrial society to a "super-industrial
society." This change overwhelms people, he believed,
with the accelerated rate of technological and social change
leaving people discontented and suffering from "shattering
stress and disorientation" – future
shock.3 Mr. Toffler, in many discussions about this
concept, stated that the term future shock is a personal perception
of "too much change in too short a period of
time." As a youngster in elementary school in the
1970's, I recall studying the concept of future shock in a
social studies class. Although I did not fully appreciate the
concept back then, as a small-firm practitioner growing up in the
tax world, I can fully appreciate what Mr. Toffler, I believe,
described in his book.
