future shock

American  

noun

1. physical and psychological disturbance caused by a person's inability to cope with very rapid social and technological change.

2. any overload of a person's or an organization's capacity for adaptation or decision-making.

---

future shock Cultural  

1. A sense of insecurity and disorientation often felt by people whose societies are undergoing rapid change.

---

Etymology

Origin of future shock

On the model of culture shock; popularized by a book of the same title (1970) by Alvin Toffler (1928–2016), U.S. journalist

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

future shock

My diagnosis of the last 10 years in politics is that everyone is living in Alvin Toffler's world of future shock.

From Salon ● Apr. 26, 2025

Deep in a bunker, a family keeps on singing in the year’s most nightmarish piece of future shock.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 6, 2024

Plus, “structural vulnerabilities persist in some types of money market funds,” which could amplify a future shock to the system.

From New York Times ● Nov. 8, 2021

The latest Black Mirror series from Charlie Brooker presents, despite its transition to Netflix, another unsettling collection of future shock nightmares drawn from consumer technology and social media trends.

From The Guardian ● Oct. 26, 2016

As computerization spreads across society, the populace at large is subjected to wave after wave of future shock.

From The Hacker Crackdown, law and disorder on the electronic frontier by Bruce Sterling