— The cognitive process in which people have a difficult time making a decision when faced with too many options. These terms and the underlying concept were introduced by Alvin Toffler in his 1970 book, Future Shock.
In the book, Toffler wrote:
The illiterate of the 21st c. will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.
The concept of ‘future shock’ — recall that this book was written half a century ago — is described as the shattering stress and disorientation that technological change induces to individuals and society at large by subjecting them to too much change in too short a time. To underscore, this was written at the end of the 1960 — the era before Google, iPhones, Tinder and Snapchat — with 5G, uber, the zero hour gig economy and the AI revolution now upon us, these changes are occurring more frequently, far more frequently, than they were a quarter of a century ago let alone 50 years ago. As Future Shock basically states, while humankind’s technological powers increase, the side effects and potential hazards also escalate.
Change is not merely necessary to life — it is life.
Prophetically Toffler wrote that, one of the definitions of sanity is the ability to tell real from unreal. Soon we’ll need a new definition. I’d say soon became now when Trump et al. introduced fake news and alternative facts. Think: Deepfake. Read: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
I say:
Too much choice is a curse.
Anna Bidoonism 