Crichton didn’t delve very deeply into the social changes that will happen in that snippet you posted. The full speech does touch on it to some extent.

IMHO that is even more profound than the technology. Granted, a great deal of social shift is technically driven.

In 1900 America had a fractured social life, there was essentially no middle class. The divide of the haves and have-nots was huge. Food came through hard physical labor for most. Travel, if you did any at all, was tedious, dangerous and extremely time consuming. Many never left their local area their entire lives.
Medicine was still half magic, effective treatment was as much prayerful hope as science.
His example on Pellagra is a good case in point.

News was sometimes days even weeks old when you learned of it. Accepted behavior in one part of the country was unacceptable in another. Language varied enormously from region to region.

Then came the telephone, radio, television and of course the internet. All of these began homogenizing the population, for the first time the folks in the Ozarks saw and heard the same thing in entertainment and news as those in Orange Ca.

The language shifted, becoming more universal. Some regional affections still remain, but nowhere near what it was in 1900.

Cultural icons and behaviors were nationalized, from the adoration of the movie stars of the 30's to Brad Pitt & Co.

Life today for the average American is so much easier, with the extra leisure time came our passion for such things as recreational rock climbing and sports stars who make obscene amounts of money.

It does force one to ponder the future, as the rate of change has speeded up enormously, I'd not want to guess what the world will be like in ten years, much less 96.