1967 imagines the home and life of 1999

We’re almost two decades past 1999, but some of the things imagined in this conception of the future in the 1960s for the turn of the century are only now just coming true (e.g., electronic medical records, home health monitoring). I was surprised how well they anticipated a lot of the function of information technology, though of course as it was the 1960s there are a lot of turning of knobs.

Second, they didn’t anticipate how traditional humans can be about certain things. It turns out that instant meals have always remained a niche, rather than taking over the whole sector. Additionally, just because people could engage in ‘e-learning’ by the mid-1990s with the internet, didn’t mean that schools and their social aspect didn’t remain important. And we’ve been able to do video-conferencing for a while, but most of us prefer to take calls in the old-fashioned way, when we take calls at all (with email and various messaging services cannibalizing a lot of the function of the telephone).

Finally, they were totally unrealistic about the nature of transportation for middle class families. Yes, people travel, depending on your socioeconomic status. But an impulsive jaunt to Mexico City to go play golf just doesn’t happen.