00100	                            FUTURE SHOCK
00200	
00300	
00400		Our  world  is changing at rate faster than some people think
00500	other people can adapt  to.    Between  1890  and  1920  technolgical
00600	changes  were having drastic effects on the daily lives of the middle
00700	and upper classes and with some delay on the  lives  of  the  working
00800	class  too.    Today  and for the last 30 years, technological change
00900	affecting people's daily lives has been much slower,  and  for  about
01000	the  last five years, rapid social, political, and ideological change
01100	has been the source of much stress.  Part of this stress  comes  from
01200	the  mis-identification  of  its  source as technological rather than
01300	social.  This causes the mistaken remedy to be  proposed  of  slowing
01400	technical  change  rather  than adapting to the social changes.  Most
01500	likely, we shall re-enter a period of rapid technological  change  in
01600	living  patterns  in  another  five to ten years.  Note that the view
01700	just expressed is contrary  to  that  expressed  in  numerous  recent
01800	articles and the recent book "Future Shock" by Alvin Toffler.
01900	
02000		In  order  to  see the point, we must distinguish between the
02100	pace of scientific and technological change itself and  the  rate  of
02200	change  in  the  way  people  live.  For example, atomic power plants
02300	represent a technological change of great importance, but it makes no
02400	difference  to  me  when  I  press  the  light  switch,  whether  the
02500	electricity was produced by burning coal or by fissioning uranium.
02600	
02700		Between 1890 and 1930, the  following  inventions  came  into
02800	common  use by great masses of people: electric lighting in the home,
02900	central heating, telephones, automobiles, movies, and radio.    These
03000	inventions  made  the  small  middle  class  family  without servants
03100	feasible, allowed the middle class to move to the suburbs, gave  each
03200	person  free physical access to the region of the country in which he
03300	lives, and allowed  immediate  communication  with  one's  relatives,
03400	friends,  girl friends, and business associates.  The effect of these
03500	innovations was very large.  The style of relations between the sexes
03600	was  changed  as  the  car  expanded  the  scope of dating.  Servants
03700	disappeared from the families  of  the  middle  classes,  the  modern
03800	nuclear  family  developed,  reliance on the passive entertainment of
03900	radio and movies became possible.
04000	
04100		The recent effects of technological  change  have  been  much
04200	smaller.      Most   of   the   innovations  of  greatest  importance
04300	scientifically have had little social effect.  Mass air  travel  came
04400	in  the 1950's, but had much less social effect than mass rail travel
04500	almost a century earlier.
04600	
04700		Television  came  in  the 1950's, and color television in the
04800	1960's, but the social effect was only a strengthening of the earlier
04900	introduction of radio.
05000	
05100		The  pill  came  in  the  1960's  but  adequate contraceptive
05200	devices already existed and were in widespread use  by  middle  class
05300	women  who  wanted  sex without babies.    Reliable female controlled
05400	contraception came in the 1920's.  The big step will be  the  morning
05500	after pill that will obviate the need for planning.