Future Shock and Life Change

When I was 12, my family moved from a very small town in northwest Washington to a less-small town in central Iowa. That was when I entered my first bookstore, and one book that I remember seeing that first time (as well as many times thereafter) was Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock, which had been published two years before. That fact alone gives you some idea of its staying power and influence. Although an avid reader, I had little interest at that time in non-fiction, but 53 years later (i.e. this year), I finally read it. Toffler’s basic thesis is that when there is too much of an accelerating rate of change in a society in a short period of time, it has negative psychological and societal effects.

Included in Toffler’s book is the concept of life-change units, which I first learned about circa 1980. I know this will sound “nerdy” to some (most?!), but I found myself fascinated with the concept as much this year as I was back then! A pair of psychologists named Thomas Holmes and Richard Rahe had developed a scale (in 1967) for measuring how much change a person has experienced over a period of time; the more change someone has experienced over the previous year, the more stress and accompanying health issues he or she is likely to have.

The scale (formally known as The Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory) has 43 “life events,” with a point value assigned to each. At the top of the list is “death of spouse,” which is 100 points; at the bottom is “minor violations of the law” (e.g. traffic tickets), which is 11 points. You can see the scale here: https://www.stress.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Holmes-Rahe-Stress-inventory.pdf One thing that is so ingenious about the scale is that it includes positive events (e.g. “marital reconciliation with mate” and “outstanding personal achievement”) as well as negative events. Others are more neutral, such as “changes in residence.” I found myself thinking back to a period of time from May 2020 to August 2021, spanning 16 months. There were at least five major life events during that time for me: retirement from work (45 points), death of a close family member (63 X 3), and major change in social activities (18, because of COVID lockdowns). The bottom of the scale notes that a score of 150-300 points over the previous year means that you have about a 50% chance of a major health breakdown in the next two years. My score over 16 months was 252; if I disregard the first 45 points, I still have a score of 207. Thankfully, I did not have a major health breakdown over the following two years, but I remember that after the death of my third sibling in about ten months, I was sometimes feeling overcome by grief. Thankfully, after the second death a large portion of my extended family was able to gather together for a memorial service as well as several days of just being together, including with the sibling who went to heaven about two months later; the value of that time together is impossible to quantify.

I think that if the COVID pandemic had happened during their lifetimes, Holmes and Rahe would have added another kind of life event, maybe something like “extended restriction of activities due to enforced lockdowns.” Because of the long-lasting and far-reaching effects of lockdowns on the social development of kids, family finances, and the changes in work and school for millions (to name just a few), maybe Holmes and Rahe would revise their scale upward so that the highest point value is more than 100. Although we’re all aware of at least some of the damage caused by the lockdowns, it will be decades before the effects on entire generations are better understood.

One limitation of Holmes and Rahe’s scale is that it was obviously developed for adults. Another, of course, is that society has changed a great deal since then, especially for kids. Other measurements of stress have been developed since then, including those specifically for kids, such as the Coddington’s Life Events Scale for Adolescents (CLES-A); it includes events such as “sibling was born,” “parents were divorced,” “parent remarried,” and “family moved to a new city.” You can see about half of the events if you click here and scroll down to page 4: https://cms.childtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/Child_Trends-2010_10_05_RB_AssessingStress.pdf

Regardless of the limitations of the Holmes-Rahe life-change units scale, I think that its ingenuity and simplicity give it amazing explanatory power. If you’ve been feeling stressed out, taking a look at this scale may very well help you understand why. And understanding can bring ways to cope and ultimately help with healing.

Along those lines: Since this blog is focused on Biblical answers to questions and issues, I should add that becoming a Christian is a major life change; giving up sinful habits, for example, can be stressful! I think that’s one reason, among many others, that more people don’t come to faith in Jesus Christ. However, if you do not yet know Him, but you turn to Him in genuine, saving faith, you will find that He gives peace, which is the ultimate antidote to stress.

One final note: at the outset, I mentioned Alvin Toffler’s book Future Shock (1970), which continues to endure. One of the reasons for that is he includes a good number of predictions about the future; while some have not come to pass, others have. Perhaps in another post, I will include some of those predictions.