I was born in '75, so spending age 5 to 15 in the go go 80s I will share the following comments.
1) GET OFF MY LAWN, TURN THAT BLASTED NOISE YOU CALL MUSIC DOWN, AND PULL YOUR PANTS UP!!! (I'm old now)
2) You think fashions from the 80s look bad now, that's what we thought of stuff from the 70s. My point, wait 10, 20 years, you'll look back and say the same thing. 80s had big hair, in the 90s I had an awesome mullet when I wasn't wearing it in a pony tail...all photo evidence has been burned.
3) The Cartoons were the coolest. GI Joe, Transformers, Thundercats, all TOTALLY awesome....at least that's how I remember it. Oddly enough I've seen these all on TV recently and concluded that either they were incredibly altered from what I was shown back then, or I was a moron (22 minute toy commercials). In fact I dare say it was the 80s that started the trend of making cartoons out of toys, or things that could be toys.
4) NO INTERNET. The mere notion of such a think was the most fantastic of fantasy....now I can't imagine how we ever managed it. Research was done at the library. Spell checker was unheard of. I had bad hand writing and my gr 6 teacher told me I'd either have to improve or plan to carry a typewritter with me once I got a job because my horrid handwriting would be a detriment to notes, memos, reports etc.
5) As mentioned by other posters, the Cold war. When you're young and you watch one or two of them movies about WWIII that you really aren't ready for, its pretty scary stuff. There was one tv special that did a war of the worlds fake out (Like a live news feed of war starting) that no adult fell for, but as a kid I found it real (and my Dad, being the tease he was told me "Yeah, its really happening")
6) Gaming was amazingly different. Home consoles were rare because they were expensive (at first) and their quality was low compared to the arcade. The Arcade was king, great games, Intellivision or Atari ports just couldn't compete (I once heard that they were intentionally lower quality because of fears it would kill the arcade business)
7) Only poncy pricks who wanted to look important had mobile phones, and then they pretended to be on them all the time to show off that they were important and had them...so no change really
8) MTV actually played music videos. Remember the music video started in the 80s (Well technically the Beatles did them in the 60s, as did a few other bands, but the 80s was when you HAD to do them). My god I rremember coming home from school and watching shows dedicated to the top videos. Sure now everyone does them, its pretty much a given, and they seem more like background, but then.....also Micheal Jackson started the decade pretty normal.
9)Merchindicing. The 80s saw huge merchindicing tie ins to danged near everything, especially films. You want proof, go to a sport card shop and look at how many trading card sets were made based on 80s movies and other properties, and compare that to any time prior. The 80s was heavily characterized by being a consumer culture, and any property that had any value or brand recognitions was sqeezed like an orange until every last drop was out.
Don't get me wrong, I have a lot of fond memories of my 80s childhood, and I'm sure those who grew up in the 70s, 90s, or 00s feel the same about their decade. To the OP, I say appreciate what you had, and look forward to what's ahead, and remember if you were a teen in the 80s, you'd be damned old now....imagine what you'd be missing out on?