I like to 'date' (which may or may not be close to the mark) the month/year when 'household words'/words we now take for granted, entered the common usage. These are just my estimations for a sample of terms related to culture, media, technology.etc...

Technology:

Rocket/Space Shuttle: 1940s
Television: Mid 1950s
Robot 1940s
Computer: Early 70s
Video games: 1986
Nintendo: 1986
Email: 1995
Internet/World Wide Web: 1995/about the same time as e-mail
Chatroom: 1997
P2P/Napster: 1999
I.T.(Information Technology): 1997-98
MP3 Player: 2001
Wi-Fi/Bluetooth: 2003
Ipod: 2003-04 (thought it was released in 2001)

Culture:
Square: 1940s?
Punk: Became big in 1950s of various/indeterminate meanings
Hippies: mid-1960s
Nerd/Geek/Dork: early 1970s
Grunge: Think it was coined in the early 90s, but peaked in usage in mid-90s
Yuppie: I think termed about 1980, but only commonly used from late 80s
Emo: 2004
Hipster: Popularity goes up and down, originally referred to a certain social group in the 1980s

Fashion:

Leg-warmers: Early 1980s
'Tank-top': 1990s
Boho (fashion): about 2000

Add any others you can think of...

Video games: 1986


Have to take issue with you on this one.  1979/1980:  Space Invaders brought it to the fore in 1979, and Asteroids really made it a household word in 1980.  I could go as far back as 1972 (Pong as a coin-op game), but  would lean towards 1979/1980 as the year in which "video games" really eclipsed "pinball" as a form of recreation.  No way it was 1986.

Video games: 1986


Definately not 1986, and I have proof :)

In the 1982 hit "Open Your Eyes" by the Lords of the New Church, is a lyric ...

"Video games train the kids for war"

[quote author=wһіѕ

The word computer stems back to the 18th Century, it meant then a person who counted, added, etc.

The word "rocket" predates the 1940s by centuries. "Rocket" as a device for space travel appeared in sci-fi at least by the 1930s, though it was not in the popular vernacular until the '40s and '50s. NASA workers and space buffs were using the term "space shuttle" in the late '60s/early '70s, but the buzz about the "space shuttle" didn't hit the general public until the launch of the Columbia was imminent. That would be 1979, 1980, or 1981 depending on how closely you were paying attention. As a kid, I certainly heard about a "space shuttle" in 1980, but didn't think much about until it was about to launch, April 1981.

I see, I'm probably really off with alot of this. Kudos for the correction..