The Michael and Cathryn Borden Memorial Book of the Day.*

Future Hype : The Myths of Technology Change
by Bob Seidensticker

We’re not the first generation to feel overwhelmed by technology, not the first to rearrange our lives to accommodate technology, and not the first to ask ourselves if technology’s good outweighs its bad. Generations past have dealt with disruptions every bit as challenging and exciting as our own. Our awe of today’s technology isn’t unique—it isn’t even particularly substantial.

Today, progress is quick in a few areas and slower in all the rest, as it has been for centuries. The PC and Internet are indeed unprecedented—just like every other major technology before them. The clumsy exponential-growth model must be replaced by a more accurate paradigm.

Three decades ago, Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock created a sensation with its portrayal of technology spinning out of society’s control. Future Hype approaches the same topic but arrives at a very different conclusion: that the popular view of technology change is wrong and that the future won’t be so shocking.

Come see how technology change really works and how to better evaluate it, anticipate it, and control it.


“Future Hype takes us on a technological rollercoaster over a landscape of exaggerated promises and failed dreams. Required reading for journalists, teachers, business managers and, well, everybody else.”
— A. K. Dewdney, author of Beyond Reason and Yes, We Have No Neutrons

* Who? Look here.