The Things Gen X Thought Would Exist By The Year 2000, And Did They?

For anyone who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s, the year 2000 sounded impossibly futuristic.

It was not simply another year on the calendar. It was the future. By the time we reached 2000, surely everything would be different. Cars would fly, robots would do the housework, people would live on the Moon and holidays abroad would probably involve some sort of rocket.

There were books, television programmes, films, toys and adverts constantly giving us ideas about what the future would look like. And because 2000 seemed so far away, there was no reason to believe they were wrong.

Then 2000 arrived.

We had mobile phones, the internet and some remarkably impressive technology, but we were still driving cars on roads, putting the bins out and arguing about whose turn it was to make the tea.

So, how much of the future we imagined actually arrived?

Flying cars

This was probably the big one.

If you asked someone in the 1980s what the year 2000 would look like, there was a reasonable chance that flying cars would feature somewhere in the answer.

The idea seemed perfectly logical. Technology was advancing rapidly, aeroplanes already existed and science fiction had been promising flying cars for decades.

Yet 2000 arrived and we were still sitting in traffic on the M4.

Even now, flying cars have not become a normal part of British life. There are experimental aircraft and ambitious plans for electric vertical take-off vehicles, but you still cannot pop to the supermarket by flying over Slough.

Perhaps that particular prediction was slightly optimistic.

Robots doing the housework

Robots were definitely supposed to make life easier.

The idea was that by 2000 we would have machines wandering around the house, cleaning, cooking and generally taking care of all the boring jobs.

There was something very appealing about this vision. Imagine coming home from work and finding that the house had been cleaned, the washing had been done and dinner was ready.

The reality is somewhat less dramatic.

We do have robotic vacuum cleaners, smart appliances and increasingly sophisticated household technology. Some of it can genuinely save time.

But the robot that does all the washing, ironing, cooking and cleaning while you sit down with a cup of tea has yet to become standard equipment.

The washing machine still expects you to put the clothes in yourself.

Video calls

This one turned out to be surprisingly accurate.

The idea of seeing someone on a screen while talking to them appeared in science fiction for decades.

To someone growing up with a telephone that sat on a table and had a cable attached to it, being able to see the person you were speaking to seemed extraordinary.

By 2000, video calls were possible, but they were certainly not part of everyday life for most people.

Today, however, video calling is completely normal.

We can speak to family members, colleagues and friends anywhere in the world while seeing them on a screen.

It may not have arrived quite when we expected, but this prediction was definitely a winner.

Pocket computers

Nobody necessarily called them smartphones, because smartphones did not exist in the form we know today.

But the idea of carrying around a small device capable of doing almost everything was very much part of the imagined future.

We imagined computers getting smaller and smaller.

What we probably did not predict was just how much they would shrink while becoming dramatically more powerful.

The phone in your pocket today can take photographs, record video, play music, provide directions, translate languages, access the internet, stream films and allow you to speak to someone on the other side of the world.

Compared with the technology available in the 1980s, it is difficult to argue that the future did not arrive.

Everyone having a computer

This prediction actually happened earlier than many people expected.

There was a time when having a computer at home felt like something special. A family might have a BBC Micro, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amstrad or another home computer.

The idea that practically everyone would eventually have access to a computer was becoming increasingly obvious by the 1990s.

What was harder to predict was that computers would stop looking like computers.

Today, many people carry several powerful computers around with them without thinking about it. Phones, tablets, watches, televisions and cars all contain technology that would have seemed extraordinary to an earlier generation.

The internet changing everything

This might be the biggest prediction that came true, although few people fully understood just how significant it would become.

For Gen X, the early internet was a strange place. Connections were slow, websites were basic and getting online often meant listening to a modem making a collection of noises that sounded like an electronic argument.

But even then, there was a sense that something important was happening.

By 2000, the internet was becoming mainstream, although nobody could have predicted quite how deeply it would become part of everyday life.

Shopping, banking, entertainment, news, work, friendships, dating and communication have all been transformed.

In this case, the future did not just arrive.

It completely changed the rules.

Homes controlled by computers

The smart home was another popular vision of the future.

We imagined pressing a button and having the lights, heating, television, curtains and appliances all respond.

That sounded futuristic in the 1980s.

Today, you can ask a smart speaker to turn the lights on, adjust the heating from your phone and control appliances remotely.

It is not quite the gleaming automated house shown in science fiction films, but the basic idea was remarkably accurate.

The only difference is that instead of a sophisticated computer built into the wall, we often use a small speaker sitting on the kitchen worktop.

Cash disappearing

There was a growing idea that money would become increasingly electronic.

The cashless society was a common prediction, and although it certainly has not happened completely, we have moved considerably closer to it.

Cards, contactless payments, online banking and mobile payments have transformed the way we spend money.

The idea of tapping a phone against a machine to buy a cup of coffee would have seemed ridiculous to someone carrying a cheque book in the 1980s.

Yet here we are.

And somehow we still have people searching through their pockets for the correct change.

Shopping from home

Shopping from home existed before the internet, of course.

There were catalogues, mail order and television shopping. But the idea that you could sit at home and buy practically anything from a computer was much more futuristic.

Today, online shopping is completely normal.

You can order food, clothes, electronics, furniture and practically anything else without leaving the house.

The strange part is that the technology has become so normal that we barely consider it futuristic anymore.

We simply complain when the delivery is late.

Holidays in space

This one has not quite worked out.

Space travel was supposed to become more accessible, and there were plenty of predictions that ordinary people might eventually be able to visit space.

In reality, space tourism has begun, but it remains extremely expensive and very far from being an ordinary holiday option.

We have probes exploring other planets, astronauts living aboard space stations and commercial companies developing new spacecraft.

But there is still no Travelodge on Mars.

At least not yet.

Living on the Moon

The Moon featured heavily in visions of the future.

By 2000, surely there would be permanent bases, moon hotels or even ordinary people taking holidays there.

Instead, the Moon remained rather inconveniently empty of British tourists.

There are serious plans and missions aimed at returning humans to the lunar surface and developing a more sustained presence, so perhaps this prediction is simply running late.

If anyone eventually opens a Moon-based holiday resort, remember that Gen X predicted it first.

Meals in pill form

Why spend time cooking when the future could simply provide all your nutritional requirements in a convenient little tablet?

Science fiction loved this idea.

Breakfast could be a pill. Lunch could be a pill. Dinner could be another pill.

Thankfully, this particular prediction has not taken over.

We still have supermarkets, Sunday roasts, fish and chips, curry, toast and the occasional argument about what to have for dinner.

Technology may have changed how we prepare food, but it hasn’t convinced most of us that eating should feel like taking medicine.

Clothes that change themselves

Another futuristic idea involved clothing that could adapt to the weather, clean itself or somehow change appearance.

We have certainly developed clever fabrics and increasingly sophisticated sportswear, but the average British wardrobe still requires a washing machine.

And if you are going out in Britain, you still need to check the weather.

The future apparently hasn’t solved that particular problem either.

No more paper

The paperless office was another prediction that seemed inevitable.

Computers would take over, information would become digital and paper would disappear.

It did not quite work out that way.

We have certainly reduced our dependence on paper, but printed documents, letters, receipts, newspapers, notebooks and forms are still around.

In fact, there are probably few things more frustrating than being asked to print, sign, scan and email a document that already exists electronically.

The paperless future is still waiting.

We would all have more leisure time

This may be the biggest disappointment.

Technology was supposed to make life easier and give us more free time.

Computers would do the boring jobs. Machines would handle repetitive tasks. Communication would be instant. Shopping would be easier.

Surely we’d all have more time to relax.

Instead, many of us spend our spare time replying to messages, checking emails, scrolling through social media, managing apps and wondering why there are so many passwords to remember.

Technology has certainly made many things faster.

Whether it has made life slower is another question.

So, did the future actually arrive?

In many ways, it did.

The remarkable thing is that some of the technology we now regard as completely ordinary would have seemed like science fiction when Gen X was growing up.

We carry powerful computers in our pockets. We can speak face-to-face with someone thousands of miles away. We can find almost any piece of information within seconds. We can watch films on demand, order almost anything online and control parts of our homes remotely.

Those are extraordinary achievements.

But the future we imagined was also supposed to look different.

We expected more robots and fewer traffic jams. More space travel and fewer spreadsheets. Flying cars, moon holidays and machines that folded the washing.

Instead, we got smartphones.

And perhaps that is the funniest part of all.

The future arrived, just not in the way we expected.

The technology became smaller, faster and more powerful, but everyday life remained surprisingly familiar. We still queue at the supermarket, put the bins out, make cups of tea, sit in traffic and complain about the weather.

Perhaps the real lesson is that predicting technology is easier than predicting people.

We were very good at imagining what machines would do.

We were less good at imagining what we would actually do with them.

What did you genuinely believe would exist by the year 2000 when you were growing up, and which prediction still surprises you by not having happened?