El shock del futuro

Future Shock es un libro escrito por el futurista Alvin Toffler en 1970.

En el libro, Toffler define el término shock futuro como un estado sicológico concreto que afecta tanto a individuos como a sociedades enteras. La definición más corta del término es la percepción personal de "demasiado cambio en un período de tiempo demasiado corto".

El libro, que se convirtió en un superventas a nivel internacional, se escribió a partir del artículo "The Future as a Way of Life" aparecido en la revista Horizon, en verano de 1965.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4] Traducido a multitud de idiomas, ha vendido más de seis millones de copias en todo el mundo.

En 1972 aparece un documental^[5] basado en el libro, con Orson Welles como narrador.

Tema

Toffler argüía que la sociedad está llevando a cabo un cambio estructural gigantesco en el paso de una sociedad industrial a super-industrial y posindustrial. Este cambio sobrepasa y agobia a muchas personas.

Toffler piensa que el grado tan acelerado de cambio tecnológico y social deja a muchas personas desconectadas y sufriendo de desorientación y fuerte estrés. Así, la mayor parte de problemas sociales son síntomas de este llamado Future Shock.

En el desarrollo de este concepto aparece y se hace popular el término "information overload" o sobrecarga informativa. Su análisis del fenómeno de la sobredosis de información es continua en sus publicaciones posteriores, especialmente en el libro La tercera ola (The Third Wave) y Powershift.

En la introducción del ensayo "Future Shlock" in his book, Conscientious Objections, Neil Postman escribe:

"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).

Características de la sociedad posindustrial

Ramas enteras de la industria desaparecen y aparecen otras. Esto impacta brutalmente sobre trabajadores que se ven obligados a un aprendizaje totalmente diferente así como a cambiar de localidad de residencia para encontrar un nuevo trabajo. Este cambio de residencia puede implicar cambios en amigos, escuela o contacto con la familia, lo que resulta en relaciones personales más superficiales con un gran número de personas en lugar de relaciones cercanas y más estables.

Las personas de la sociedad posindustrial cambian de profesión y lugar de trabajo frecuentemente, con lo que hacen varios recorridos laborales a lo largo de su vida. El conocimiento de un ingeniero queda obsoleto en diez años. Mucha gente busca cada vez más trabajos temporales por esta razón.

Muchos bienes se han convertido en objetos desechables, ya que el coste de la reparación o su limpieza es mayor que el coste de un objeto nuevo debido a la producción en masa.

El diseño de los bienes caduca rápidamente: aparece una segunda generación de ordenadores antes del final de la vida útil esperada de la primera generación. Es además posible alquilar casi cualquier cosa, lo que elimina la necesidad de posesión. El cambio constante en el mercado también supone un reto para el ámbito del marketing, debido a objetivos cambiantes.

Véase también

Referencias

↑ 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"
↑ en:Future Shock (film)

Lecturas

Enlaces externos

Impacto del lenguaje en Future Shock (Streaming audio & mp3)
Movie review for Future Shock
Película entera Future Shock
Inspirado en el libro, habla del futuro cercano

[1] Toffler, Alvin, "The Future as a Way of Life", Horizon magazine, Summer 1965, Vol VII, Num 3

[2] Horizon magazine: master index"

[3] Eisenhart, Mary, "Alvin And Heidi Toffler: Surfing The Third Wave: On Life And Work In The Information Age", MicroTimes #118, January 3, 1994

[4] "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"

[5] :Future Shock (film)

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