1950s/60s Reaction to the 21st Century

'Information overload' might become a pop culture term for those from the past exposed to the wealth of knowledge now available in a near instant.

No one's replied to this thread in a while, which is why I'll be the first to rectify that. Sooner or later, the downtimers will come across modern media--both much more advanced TV, movies and conventional news reporting, and the ever-piling digital contents on some out-of-this-world doohickey called "the internet". I'd also like to see what they make of pop cultural phenomena that, while new and alien to them, would be old hat by our current 21st Century standards. For example, their reactions to this:


Or this, which conveniently (though not thoroughly) summarizes key events that have taken place during and since the '50s/60s up to 1989:


In regards to technology, even a 2000s-era flip phone would seem straight out of sci-fi to them--not to mention web-connected devices like smartphones, iPads and personal computers (and to some extent, robots and other such automated systems!).

I think for most people, the technology would not be a factor or something they could comprehend in the same fashion. These are folk from an era before any sort of video games, colour television or even really a widespread knowledge of computers. It seems that you are looking at things through the lense of a modern youngster and digital native. There are a lot of people even today who have no knowledge or interest in gaming, the internet, smart phones or social media.

There was a much clearer distinction between youth and adulthood back then, rather than the eternal teenagers of today. Even then, there would still be a great deal of confusion and disappointment that, for all its wonders, the 21st century is so limited, inward looking, self-obsessed and wrought by strifes utterly beyond their experience or imagining. Given the declining rate of knowledge, both general and specific, they would be quite surprised by how stupid many people are.

If you had told me of it back in the 1980s, then for the most part, I would have told you to keep that future, as it had nothing of real interest.

The ideas that became the first generation of video games were around in the 1950s and 1960s, but in an embryonic stage. It also stretches the definition of "20 somethings" extremely far - the only people in that category were computer science students at a limited number of American and British universities.

We have two publicly exhibited novelty computer games in Britain and Canada in the 1950s that can't really be characterised as being at the cutting edge of the zeitgeist.
All of the other embryonic games were on university mainframes, in some cases for student use and in one case (Tennis for Two) to entertain visitors at open days.

It really isn't until the introduction of electronic arcade games in the 1970s that we see a bleed through into youth culture, followed by the birth of video games and the personal microcomputer.

Video games were an idea in this period, but one so young and limited that it can be compared to a twinkling in the milkman's eye rather than even embryonic for the vast majority of the period.

Should you take an 18 year old from 1957 or 1964, they'd be astounded that everyday people carry in their pockets a device more powerful than any computer in the world, but not truly shocked - after all, the futurism and fiction of the time openly predicted various miraculous developments. They would be shocked at what many people (not all) use it for - sharing vacuous photographs, pornography and conspiracy to name but a few.

The biggest difference that would be apparent to them is the lack of the same separation between adults and children, with the new 'teenagers' of the 1950s not really expecting that their fashion, language, music, films and culture would be subsume the 'adult world' wholesale. The level of sexualisation and profanity would come as a great shock.

Extremely American-centric, but not really accurate at all. There had been a black general in 1940, a USAF general in 1959 and a naval captain in 1961. The first black senator was in 1967 and there had been Congressmen since the 1920s.

Firstly, I think it would still be surprising to some degree, given the relative position of blacks at the time.

Secondly, my observations on eternal teenagers weren’t directed at the millennials or the follow on kids, but at the generation that started it - the Baby Boomers. The following generations have continued on that path, but the rot started there. It was normalised and indeed held up on high by a culture that began to worship youth to an unhealthy extent.

spectator.org/the-teening-of-america/
Whilst a bit polemical at times, many of the observations made there concur with my point.

I don’t really view the Great Recession or getting a lot of student debt for less than useful degrees as global issues, but rather a very American preoccupation. Inflation and wage increases occurring at different levels is a factor, but not one that traps young men and women existentially. There are always options of what not to spend on.With regard to college debt, far too many people, not just in America, are going to university. Their grades and intellectual capacity don’t really merit it. Even then, there are many dead end courses that accrue debt but don’t offer the type of well paying job to pay it off; on the flip side, the US student debt situation is far from logical or just. In any event, that was not the generation I was aiming at.