Are We Living In A Science Fictional World Now that Science Fiction Largely Did Not Anticipate.

I had the great privilege a to interview renowned Analog editor Stanley Schmidt for a up coming show for StarShipSofa. One question I asked him really made me think well after the interview was finished. Below is a typed version of that soon to be aired interview.

Me: Has the technology went in a different direction from what you were expecting? In the 60’s and 70’s it was all the space race but we seem now to have went into smart phones and wearable computers. Did you expect it to go this direction?

Stan: I think that is a very important point that one of the biggest surprises in the development of technology and a case where science fiction almost completely missed the boat. The whole business of computers and how ubiquitous they have become. Everybody predicted computers but nobody predicted they were going to in every aspect of life for individuals as they do now. You can find a few early evidences of it but we are living in a very science fictional world now, and its a science fictional world that science fiction largely did not anticipate.

I find it fascinating that as Stan says… on a whole science fiction failed to see where the future was going. I have always thought it was the other way round, that science fiction predicted where we as a whole followed. And sure, like Stan says, there was a few early adopters but for the majority… we seem to have missed this change in direction. I would like to find out why?