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In the US in the 1980s there was still existential dread from the cold war... nuclear war was very much a concern, although less because, well, it just hadn't happened. We also had a terrific "war on drugs", which was used to oppress minorities and in general stoke up fear and funnel money to militarized police. We had massive inflation at the start of the decade. Iran had just had a religious revolution, and the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Trump declared war on unions and basically ended the successful policies preventing the worst excesses of capitalism that were put in place after the Great Depression (which Clinton gleefully continued). The AIDS epidemic began, and we had no idea in the beginning how bad it might become. It stoked already rampant homophobia.
As far a daily life in the US, we had the dominance of malls as a place where people went to buy stuff. It led to a lot of neighborhood businesses dying, and eliminated any place where people could meet without a commercial purpose. And because they were private property, people could be controlled. No protests allowed on private property.
We did have a few good things of course! The split of AT&T meant cheap phone calls and the ability to buy cool phones, like a hamburger phone of whatever. Computers got cheap enough that there were 8-bit microcomputers, like the Commodore 64 or the Apple II. Piracy was rampant - you could go over to a friend's place with a box of blank floppies and come home with 20 new cracked games. We got rap and break dancing and synthesizer music and music videos.
The Internet was only available at a few universities, so if you wanted knowledge you went to a library. Urban myths and misinformation were everywhere, but unamplified by any algorithm. You could shop by calling a shop or even sending a fax.