Back in the 80s, the famous futurist, Alvin Toffler authored a “prescient” (well, that's what futurists are for), book, titled, Future Shock, outlining the contours of the then emerging services economy.
Other than that, the other premise was that the Industrial era was on the throes of decline, coining the term “Smokestack” era to describe the same. The book is worth a read, as is another contemporary take, Present Shock, by the left leaning media theorist, and trend watcher, Douglas Rushkoff.
Rushkoff essentially argues that we are so “blindsided” by “living in and for the moment”, that we're losing sight of “real” value creation. OTH, Toffler too speaks about “blinding” by the future. In short, we're like Deers caught in the glare, that our senses cannot handle “change”.
My take is that the present moment is a Viral Shock, where we are similarly caught off guard by the “pressing” need to respond and react to virality, whether social media posts, trending news, or, simply, anything that happens to have reached a meme like virality.
Indeed, the Pandemic has “attuned” us to this Viral Shock, where everything from the Covid virus, to the 24/7 dependence on tech, has made us zombies. The effects linger to this day, where Long Covid has made us enfeebled, and Instant living has made us listless.
So, there you are, where we have a triple “convergence” of sorts, with the Future arriving at breakneck speed, the present hitting us at byte speed, and virality making us “frazzled” to the point where we seem to have “lost the plot” and given up the narrative to AI.