后工业社会是一个社会科学名词，指涉开始自1960年代的工业社会转型出现的社会现象，该词最早出自社会学家丹尼尔·贝尔(Daniel Bell)的著作《后工业社会的来临》(1973)(The Coming of Post-Industrial Society)。

1960年之后，一般认为工业社会已进入一个变化期，跟一百多年前欧洲社会由农业社会转变成工业社会一样巨大。

。贝尔在书中认为，现代工业社会正在进入一个新的发展阶段，即后工业阶段。其特征如下：

　如果信息被私有化，那占有的人有无上的权力，相反，未能占有者便会被推向低层/边缘。i.e.数码隔膜

In sociology, the post-industrial society is the stage of society's development when the service sector generates more wealth than the manufacturing sector of the economy.

The concept was popularized by Daniel Bell, and is closely related to similar sociological theoretical constructs such as post-fordism, information society, knowledge economy, post-industrial economy, liquid modernity, and network society. They all can be used in economics or social science disciplines as a general theoretical backdrop in research design.