With Google attempting to create its folding smartphone, it's easy to think that improvements in technology have come to a standstill. Many people remain unimpressed with the "advancements" made in various technological fields, yet take someone from 10 years ago, and they'd no doubt be impressed by the inventions of 2023.

While it's hard to gauge what advancements people from the past would be most astonished by, that hasn't stopped theorists from coming to their conclusions. Redditors too have their own opinions on what modern inventions time travelers would be wild about, ranging from the seemingly mundane to revolutionary.

Television

QN95B Samsung Neo QLED 4K Smart TV

"TV" was listed by Redditor Fit_General7058 as one of the many things that a person from the past would be amazed by. The invention admittedly isn't modern given that it was created almost 100 years ago, but there's no denying that anyone from before the 20th century would be perplexed by the contraption were they whisked to the 21st century.

Related: The Best TV Stands, Ranked

What makes television one of the hypnotic inventions of the past century is the fact that it took the novelty of cinema and put it in every home. The ability to tune into any number of programs based on the thousands of channels there are available is something no one could have predicted when film cameras were first produced in the late 19th century.

Air Fryers

Ninja AF150AMZ Air Fryer XL Amazon product shot

How people cook food has seen many advancements over the years, from cooking over a fireplace to the production of the gas oven in the 1800s to the invention of the microwave in 1947. Perhaps the most astonishing evolution in home cooking, in the eyes of bigjaymizzle, is the "air fryer."

While many people transplanted from the past would be astonished by the novelty of electrically powered ovens and toasters, the concept of the air fryer takes the cake as the most fantastical kitchen appliance due to its concept. The protagonist of H.G Wells' The Time Machine, for all his inventiveness, wouldn't be able to conceive how humanity has harnessed the power of the air and placed it in a small pot.

Bullet Proof Vests

While ancient civilizations utilized armor to protect themselves from swords and arrows, these protective measures were abandoned following the invention of the musket. To many, the only means of protection against firearms was to avoid getting shot.

Because of the belief that nothing could stop a bullet from causing damage to a person, it makes sense that gurlat would cite "Kevlar body armour" as an invention that would baffle travelers from the past. If it had been around during the 18th and 19th centuries, people might have given up on using handheld firearms in battle.

Shake Weight

A shake weight rests atop a white surface

One deleted Reddit user claimed that people from the past would go wild over the "shake weight" if they traveled to the 21st century. It seems incredulous to say such a thing about a silly exercise tool, but television points to amazement being plausible.

Related: 10 Best Budget Smartwatches, Ranked From Least To Most Expensive

In the Red Dwarf episode "Lemons," the crew bring back a man named Jesus from the 1st century A.D. to their spaceship. While he's startled at the technological surroundings, the thing that most amazes him is the cloth bag due to the convenience it offers for carrying goods. Give a 20th-century bodybuilder a shake weight, and it's quite likely they'd find similar amazement.

Spaceships

Starfield spaceship fying near a planet

Even after the airplane was invented by the Wright Brothers, space travel was long thought to be unfathomable. By that point in history, humans knew that there was no oxygen beyond Earth's atmosphere, a fact which makes the "spaceship" such a mesmerizing invention in the eyes of pvaspecialist.

What makes space shuttles so confounding in the eyes of ancient travelers is that they act as a fulfillment of fantasy. Authors had long written stories about people visiting other worlds, yet few could have predicted the possibility of interstellar flight to be a reality or that people would be arguing about the coolest ships in Star Wars.

Self Driving Cars

Nvidia Self Driving Car Fix Patent

While the technology hasn't exactly been perfected, it's clear that self-driving vehicles are among the most impressive technological feats of the modern era. As DLO_AR predicted back in 2013 "Self driving cars will change the way we do things drastically."

Visitors from the past would be perplexed by self-driving cars because people today are still amazed by the technology. It's so fresh and innovative that many wonder whether the reality they live in is real, or if it's all part of some Matrix-like simulation.

Drones

holy stone foldable drone

Humans have long used carrier pigeons and other animals to deliver messages to one another, but drones take things to a whole other level. As klight101 noted, "it’s so useful now that Amazon uses drones to deliver packages in some countries."

Related: 10 Tech Inventions That Were Ahead Of Their Time, According To Reddit

Beyond the use of drones to deliver packages to people, time travelers from the past would be amazed by the other capabilities the machines offer. To them, it would be inconceivable for battles to be waged across the planet without anyone having to travel, but with drones, they can drop bombs on military compounds while a man pilots them from hundreds of miles away.

Smartphones

Gmail logo on smartphone custom background

According to Fit_General7058, "all types of telephone[s]" would be perplexing to people from the past. Their invention in 1876 was completely mind-blowing for the time due simply to the fact that no one was able to talk to one another in real-time across vast distances.

Jump forward to the 21st century, and the citizens of 1876 (even Alexander Graham Bell) would still be surprised by the capabilities of the phone. No longer are they used to simply talking with people, now, phones can accomplish multiple tasks, whether it be as a calculator, planner, gaming device, or music player. Such multiplicity is something no one in the past could have predicted (as evidenced by movies like Back To The Future Part II).

3D Bioprinter

Bioprint FirstAid Handheld Bioprinter.

Redditor Zulius has argued that the 3D bioprinter "is going to go down as pretty damn important." While still in its early stages, the invention has proven itself to be the path toward the future due to the potential it has to create food and build body parts for people.

Because of the 3D bioprinter's capabilities, it's clear that most time travelers would be amazed by the invention. After all, people from the past could only grow food from the ground and didn't have any means of replacing faulty body parts (beyond prosthetics).

The Internet

Straight Talk Home Internet by Verizon and Walmart.

As Redditors such as WanderlustyStillness have argued, "The internet" remains the most monumental creation of the past 35 years. If one were to try and explain the concept to a person from the past, especially if they came from before the 1950s, they'd be unable to comprehend the internet.

To many, the internet remains pure magic. It has continued to connect people from around the globe in much the way the telephone did for most of the 20th century, it has replaced the library as a hub for information, and has ensured that whatever needs one has can be accessed by simply pressing a few keys.

Next: 10 Fun Gadgets From The '90s That You Can Still Buy Today