The Aquarian Age
The potential changes resulting from the predictions of future ages of computer connectivity are unsettling. For example, The Information Age has prompted a debate over Harlan Cleveland's notions of information as something fundamentally diffusive or those of John Naisbitt who sees information as a commodity.

The Virtual/Shocked Age posited by Edith Weiner or Alvin Toffler and its reshaping of society based on new and customized ways to use and distribute information, promotes what Toffler calls "future shock" to define "the shattering stress and disorientation felt by individuals undergoing too much change in too short a time" (2).

The theme of ubiquitous telecommunications connections central to The Telespheral Age promoted by FM-2030 is unsettling to those concerned about privacy and social equities.

People will naturally seek ways to deal with these kinds of rapidly accelerating changes and the unsettling nature of future ages of computer connectivity. Futurists will do this as well. Seeking to cast future change in as acceptable light as possible John Naisbitt and Patricia Aberdeen discuss a set of principles they call Millennial Megatrends that will, they say, propel us positively into the 21st Century. They are:
  1. The Booming Global Economy
  2. A Renaissance in the Arts
  3. The Emergence of Free-Market Socialism
  4. Global Lifestyles and Cultural Nationalism
  5. The Privatization of the Welfare State
  6. The Rise of the Pacific Rim
  7. The Decade of Women in Leadership
  8. The Age of Biology
  9. The Religious Revival of the New Millennium
  10. The Triumph of the Individual
Rather than technology, Naisbitt and Aberdeen promote the power of the individual as the force of positive change in the future.
Today there is a new possibility: The individual can influence reality by identifying the directions in which society is headed. Knowledge is power, it has been said. Even if you do not endorse the direction of a trend, you are empowered by your knowledge about it. You may choose to challenge the trends, but first you must know where they are headed. By identifying the forces pushing the future, rather than those that have contained the past, you possess the power to engage with your reality. (334-335)
Marilyn Ferguson discusses enlarging human potential as a way of taking advantage of Naisbitt and Aberdeen's millennial megatrends. An important component, she says, for the Aquarian Conspiracy, as she calls this human potential movement, are vast global communication networks that promote the sharing of information among individuals around the world. The Aquarian Age will thus humanize The Telespheral Age, and promote opportunities for the enlargement of human potential.

Judith Hooper and Dick Teresi, both former editors of Omni magazine, devote a chapter of their book, Would the Budda Wear a Walkman? A Catalogue of Revolutionary Tools for Higher Consciousness, to what they see as the mind-enhancing capabilities of computers and computer software. They say,
The computer is more than a number-crunching, word-processing brain. In the right hands, it is also a mind-expanding, creativity-boosting, even mind-altering tool. . . . And the key is software. (142)
In support of their contention, Hooper and Teresi list five software categories they believe can promote mind-enhancement: smartware (to make one smarter, more organized, etc.), psychological or stressware (to reduce anxiety), games/head trips (alternate realities), and spiritual ("intended to make you deeper") (142).
"The Seven Ages of Computer Connectivity" (The Aquarian Age)
by John F. Barber
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