going back to the idea of future vs past and what it might be like. I don't think many of us could imagine things being vastly different from what we currently experience. How many Victorians could have imagined what everyday life would have been like just 100 years later?
My gt gran was born in 1885 and married in 1908. She started off working as a domestic servant, as did many young women in those times. She never worked outside the house again after she married. She had 6 children and died in 1978. It is fascinating to compare her early life with life towards the late 20th century. It was a period of incredible growth & innovation.
In her lifetime she would have seen (amongst all sorts of other things of course) :
electric lighting inside houses. She grew up firstly with just candles and then gas lights.
all manner of electrical appliances such as vacuum cleaners and washing machines.
television
telephones
the microwave
domestic fridges & freezers
indoor plumbing. She was lucky enough to move into a newly-built house in 1935 that had an inside toilet, bathroom and also a back boiler for a hot water supply. Right up till the 1960's my DH's gran had an old cast iron range in a house with only cold water, and an outside toilet that was just a hole with a wooden board over it (not a modern flush toilet).
Cars became a lot more common of course.
Aeroplanes. And using them for holidays abroad.
Elevators and lifts became a lot more commonplace in public buildings. I remember her refusing to use them because she thought they weren't safe (this would have been in the 1960's)
plastics
man-made fibres such as nylon used for clothing/fabrics.
Many medical innovations such as antibiotics, organ transplants, replacement joints, insulin, many more vaccinations including against polio (which one of her children had, and left her disabled).
The NHS is probably the single most important change in her lifetime, as was the ability to get a pension after her husband died.
zips & velcro in clothing
aerosols
ball-point pen
the contraceptive pill (she would never have used it of course, as she was too old - and a widow - by then)
I could go on...
and space travel of course. Apparently she never believed in the moon landings.
I remember that right into her 80's, before she became crippled by arthritis, she still wore a heavily boned corset every day. She said it wasn't surprising that young people had such bad posture because they weren't wearing proper support!
I think the biggest change in my lifetime has been the computer, the internet & the increasing reliance we have on digital technology. Could we survive without it I wonder?