Future Shock is a 1970 book by American futurist Alvin Toffler,[1] written together with his wife Adelaide Farrell,[2][3] in which the authors define the term "future shock" as a certain psychological state of individuals and entire societies, and a personal perception of "too much change in too short a period of time".

He argues that the accelerated rate of technological and social change leaves people disconnected and suffering from "shattering stress and disorientation"—future shocked.

In the introduction to an essay titled "Future Shock" 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.

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.

A large number of people acted as prosumers (eating their grown food, hunting animals, building their own houses, making clothes,....).

Alvin Toffler's main thought centers on the idea that modern humans (we) feel shock from rapid changes.