[3] Trevor Horn remembers about the song: "Listening back to the piano, bass and drums tracks was extraordinary.

[11] In its 1980 review, Smash Hits listed the song as one of the best tracks on parent album "The Age of Plastic", alongside "Video Killed the Radio Star".

[3] Krinein magazine wrote that songs from the album, "The Plastic Age", "Kid Dynamo", "Elstree" and "Johnny on the Monorail", were "equally effective in their melodies, rhythms and harmonies.

"[13] Napster's Nicholas Baker said of "The Plastic Age" as one of the songs from the album that Trevor Horn's "considerable songwriting prowess" was evident in.

The music video for "Living in the Plastic Age" employed bright colours, harsh source lighting, much color keying, and provocative motifs (women in body paint portraying inanimate objects).

[18] Will Harris of PopMatters said, in a 2003 review of Supertramp's album Breakfast in America, that the song "Living in the Plastic Age” might've had a keyboard bit cribbed from "Fool's Overture".

[20] French extreme metal band Carnival in Coal covered the song for their 2005 album Collection Prestige.