If Someone from the 1980s Suddenly Woke Up in 2024, What Would Surprise Them Most?

I came across this question on Facebook. As expected, it garnered thousands of comments, most of which focused on computers, the internet, and smartphones. Some responses also talked about social media and societal transformations.

Then, I thought about myself in the 1980s. Growing up in a small town in the Aegean region, reading science fiction books, I wondered what would surprise me the most if I were suddenly transported from those years to the present.

Computers? Frankly, 1980s Turkey was a bit behind the rest of the world. Computers were not yet widespread; in fact, in the first half of the 1980s, they were things we only saw in science fiction movies. I had no idea how they worked. It’s interesting and somewhat amusing that I am now a computer engineer – no generation, I think, will ever witness a digital leap like ours, the generation of kids from the 1980s. The same analogy might apply to the generation that grew up in the 1960s and space technology (hopefully, it won’t). By the second half of the 1980s, computers started to slowly enter our lives. We played games on Commodore 64, computers appeared in banks, the first ATM was introduced in Turkey in 1988, and by the late 1980s, the first arcades (called Atari Salons in Turkey) started to open.

Therefore, considering my interest in science fiction and my frequent musings about the future, computers wouldn’t surprise me that much – except for their large color screens! Because the computer screens we saw were usually black and white, green and white, or had simple graphics with 16 colors.

The Commodore 64 introduced us to computers in the second half of the 1980s
The Commodore 64 introduced us to computers in the second half of the 1980s. Photo by (the original uploader was) PrixeHda:Fil:Commodore64ogdisk.jpg, CC BY-SA 3.0, Link

Smartphones? Maybe a bit, but not too much. Even in the 1980s, I often imagined video calls on mobile devices. I “knew” they would become a reality someday.

The internet? Perhaps, but not much. By the 1980s, the groundwork for the internet was already being laid, and thanks to the science magazines I read, I was aware of developments in this area. However, I would have thought that computers and computer communications would mostly be used by scientists and engineers, and seeing them become so widespread among the general public might have surprised me.

What would really surprise me, I think, is not the progress but the lack of progress in some areas.

For instance, the fact that space exploration has lagged so much. What do you mean it’s 2024 and space travel is still only for specially trained astronauts? Weren’t we all supposed to go to space, the moon, and perhaps other planets by the 2000s? Spend our holidays on Saturn’s moons? What do you mean we haven’t been back to the moon? Weren’t we supposed to build bases there? What do you mean we still haven’t gone to Mars despite all these years?

Another “non-progress” that would surprise me is in aviation. What do you mean there are no more supersonic commercial planes anymore? What happened to the fantastic hypersonic planes we read about in science fiction books and saw in movies? The current planes look so much like those from the 1980s. Why hasn’t there been any progress in this field? At least not as much as we imagined in the 1980s-though I acknowledge advances in safety and digital technology, at first glance, the planes of 2024 look almost the same as those from the 1980s. What happened to the fantastic-looking “planes of the 2000s” we saw in science magazines?

Most of today’s cars are not fundamentally different from those in the 1980s either. Perhaps electric cars might surprise me a bit, but weren’t all cars supposed to be electric by the 2000s?

Where are the robots? We imagined the 2000s as years when robots would be part of everyday life. Not seeing a single robot around would definitely surprise me.

Other things that would surprise me include the overcrowding in cities (the town I grew up in with a population of 22,000 now exceeds 200,000), the fact that electricity is still predominantly generated from fossil fuels, the limited use of nuclear energy, the failure to achieve nuclear fusion, the worsening global warming situation, ridiculous conspiracy theories, and the decline in scientific literacy despite all the publicly available sources (like the internet).

In conclusion, if I had fallen asleep in the 1980s and woken up now, the things that would surprise me would generally not be related to technological progress but rather the lack of progress in some areas and people’s ignorance about science and their belief in ridiculous things.

Ozgur Nevres in 1989
In 1989, as a science fiction enthusiast and science aficionado, I was studying at Malatya Science High School when this photo was taken. Science high schools were secondary schools established in Turkey to provide a better scientific education for gifted children.
M. Özgür Nevres
M. Özgür Nevres

I am a software developer and a science enthusiast. I was graduated from the Istanbul Technical University (ITU), Computer Engineering. In the past, I worked at the Istanbul Technical University Science Center as a science instructor. I write about mostly science and science fiction on this website. I am also an animal lover! I take care of stray cats & dogs. This website's all income goes directly to our furry friends. Please consider supporting me on Patreon [by clicking here], so I can help more animals!

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