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Q&A How do I avoid tech/social errors in near-future fiction?

Not long ago I read a novel set in the near future (mid-21st century). My suspension of disbelief was totally fine with time travel, an implanted "universal translator" of sorts, major medical adv...

2 answers  ·  posted 11y ago by Monica Cellio‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T03:12:11Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/q/9465
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T03:12:11Z (almost 5 years ago)
Not long ago I read a novel set in the near future (mid-21st century). My suspension of disbelief was totally _fine_ with time travel, an implanted "universal translator" of sorts, major medical advances... but balked at plot points that depended on people being limited to land-lines (no mobile communication devices, and no "tech failure" that eliminated them). The novel was written in 1992, just a few years before cell phones hit the consumer market.

As a writer, what can I do to help my near-future stories age well? Do I just need to be a great visionary (or settle for getting it wrong, since I'm probabably not), or are there things I can do to track "up and coming, society-changing" trends?

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2013-11-19T22:50:08Z (about 11 years ago)
Original score: 13