My favorite r/askhistorians post of all time is as follows, roughly:

Q: what did Roman citizens think would happen in the next 20 years, in the next 100? Did they make predictions like we do?

A: it didn't occur to them that the world would change in the next 20 or 100 years, because in many ways it hadn't changed in the previous 100. So, no, they weren't future-obsessed like we were, not even close.

I've been doing a lot of reading lately by a man named John Kautsky (this among others). The gist is that when we study history and especially the social sciences and even more especially political science, we start in about 1600. Rousseau is about as early as we go. We tend to think that the modern form of government is the best form, as opposed to the next form, and thus we are blinded.

Kautsky points out that before that, much of humanity had the same government -- the traditional and to a lesser extent the commercial aristocracy -- for almost 5000 years. And yet who draws any modern political science conclusions from that? There was no change.

Biologically, never mind mentally, we simply haven't been equipped to cope with change up to now. You're right. Occasionally I sit and think about the internet. I make an active effort to think about all the things I can do with the internet. And yet the next day I inevitably waste some of my time on something, maybe a phone call, or asking someone a question, or even driving somewhere, that I could have used the internet for in a third of the time. That's a microcosm of society's attempts to handle the unprecedented changes that arguably began when the steam engine was invented (or Henry Ford, or IBM, etc) and haven't stopped. I'm still learning, as are we all, but I think there's hope.

I have a pet theory about this, I'm not just rambling (I don't think). My parents are pretty good with understanding technology, which is to say that while they're nowhere near me, they're just as far in the other direction from their parents. What I wonder is whether someday I'll be in the same situation as my parents, with my children. But I don't think I will be, for one critical reason. I think in this generation we've finally grasped that change, especially with regard to technology, isn't going away anytime soon. We've left the Space Age and entered the Information Era. Growing up with change has fostered an understanding and an acceptance of change and new ideas that was previously not present in our society (so yes we're starting, finally, to catch up, I think). This should in turn make it easier and easier to adapt to new changes, until we've fully caught up (if that's possible). I honestly believe, and this may be wishful, that this is the generation where we turn the corner. I see no reason why I, in 30 years, shouldn't be able to keep up with change just as well as people born in 2020. It really just depends what atmosphere you grow up in, and we've grown up in an atmosphere of wilder change than any other generation ever.

EDIT: I should note I've written this out in some form or another elsewhere on hubski but I can't remember where.