1915 to 1965 vs 1965 to 2015

[muon2]

Most people will react to the views of the future by comparing it to the ordinary activities in their daily life. The comparison looking forward 50 years is also colored by how much changed in the prior 50 years. Social changes would matter most in those areas that impacted the most people.

In the US the car was around in 1915, so to see a society built around the car 50 years later might not be surprising, but the interstates, supermarket and shopping mall would probably be surprising in their scale since they weren't really envisioned until WWII. Ready-to-eat food, especially frozen foods would seem a radical advance compared to 2015. The biggest shock would probably be mass communication through radio and tv - commercial radio didn't appear until the 20's. Medicine would be the other big shock as US life expectancy grew from 55 to 70, an increase of almost 30%, combined with drugs from antibiotics to the birth control pill.  WWII was such a watershed in lifestyle changes, I think it's hard to imagine any 50 year span that would seem more surprising to a time traveler.

For Americans, their view of the world of 2015 from 1965 would likely be influenced by the Jetsons (1962) plus the NY Worlds Fair (1964). There would be a builtin expectation of rapid technological change as they had seen since WWII. Computers and robots might come as no surprise. Video calls were anticipated and Dick Tracy had wearable technology in the form of his wrist phone. Someone from 1965 might not be surprised by computers everywhere in 2015. Medical advances are big, but the change in life expectancy by 15% is no where near the increase of the previous 50 years, so it probably would not be a big surprise, especially since there still isn't a "cure for cancer" in the form of a pill that many in 1965 would have expected by 2015.

The biggest surprises in technology from 1965 to 2015 would be the impact of the internet leading to things like on-line shopping and streaming on-demand video (the Jetsons flew to the shopping mall and movie theater). So where are those flying cars?