America in the Technetronic Age

America is beginning to experience certain changes and in the course of so doing it is becoming a "technetronic" society: a society that is shaped culturally, psychologically, socially, and economically by the impact of technology and electronics, particularly computers and communications. The industrial process no longer is the principal determinant of social change, altering the mores, the social structure, and the values of society. America is in the midst of a transition. On the contrary, the instantaneous electronic intermeshing of mankind will make for an intense confrontation, straining social and international peace. The differences were "livable" because of time and distance that separated them. These differences are actually widening while technetronics are eliminating the two insulants of time and distance. The resulting trauma could create almost entirely different perspectives on life, with insecurity, envy, and hostility becoming the dominant emotions for increasingly large numbers of people.