Future Shock - Get To The Point Already!

When are you gonna get to the future?

Jeff Jarvis posted a tweet about Future Shock - The Movie

Future Shock was a book written by Alvin Toffler, a 'futurist' in 1970.

(Futurist, by the way, strikes me as a great job).

It became an instant best-seller.

In 1972 it was made into a film with Orson Welles as the host/narrator.

Here's the first part.

OK. It's the usual crap about 'computers will control our lives' or 'we are innundated with information - more than 1,000 books published each month'!  That's it? A thousand books a month?  Compared to the daily output of the web, it's nothing.  Really, as a 'futurist' Tofler was pretty crap. But I suppose it's too late to ask for our money back. That's the advantage of being a futurist.

What I took away from watching the film however, was an overwhelming feeling of 'get to the point already'.

The film just drags on and on and on before it finally gets to the point of what it wants to say.

This, I think, is very much a product of our being inundated with information.  Lots of it. A lot more than 1,000 books a month!

We need to get to the point - to be far more focused - far more direct.

This, I think, happened gradually, but now it's quite precise.  It's not so much that we have shorter attention spans, but rather a greater impatience with wasted time. And there is a ton of wasted time at the open (like half) of the film.

Get to the point!

The film is somewhat amusing to watch for the antiquated technology but moreso for the pacing. If Future Shock has been about anything it is about focus, focus, focus. 

And that, I think, is no bad thing.

DId I get to the point quickly enough?

Your videos have to do the same.