The earliest wave of science fiction occurred in the late 19th and very early 20th Century, with novelists such as Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and Olaf Stapledon writing regularly published hardback books often known by the genre name "scientific romance." The pulp magazine era of circa 1920 - 1950 saw the creation of monthly magazines entirely devoted to what by then was called "science fiction." As the pulp era ended in 1950, some pulp titles transitioned to monthly "digest size," and a large number of new magazine titles appeared in that form. However, the real game changer was the original paperback novel, which began to appear in the late 1940s. A huge fraction of all original paperback novels published in the era 1950 - 1970 were science fiction novels, and the corresponding impact on pseudosciences of the day was huge.

Astrophysicist Andrew May has written a number of books describing the complex influences and interactions between science fiction and pseudoscience, and explaining the relevant scientific facts.

A famous lecture on the topic by science fiction author John Sladek

Good science fiction can serve as a source of inspiration for kids reading it, enhancing and sharpening their interest in science, and even leading to a career in science when circumstances are right. But bad science fiction is generally founded on pseudoscience, and actually does great harm to the young reader, if the young reader does not have access to fact-based writings about science, aimed at young audiences. Science fiction can "poison the well."

For the increasingly science-illiterate general public, exposed to science fiction in the mass media, the fiction is the only "knowledge" of "science" that exists. A science fiction writer was horrified to learn that readers were "learning science" from her books! A good deal of printed science fiction is anti-science in tone and theme, and nearly 100% of science fiction in the film and video media is anti-scientific in basic content.  Since the average young American is now functionally illiterate, it is the media bastardization of science fiction themes that has the main role in teaching fiction in place of science.

Incredibly, 54% of the adult US population is functionally illiterate... cannot read for content. So most "knowledge" of "science" in the general population comes from media: movies, TV, etc.
4th grade, US public schools, 2019

Based on my observations over the years, and what colleagues at other universities tell me, of the incoming freshman class of physics majors at any large university, only at best about 50% eventually graduate with a degree in physics. The rest switch majors to some other field about halfway through their undergraduate years. Of the students who do continue on to get a BS in physics, very few were motivated to major in physics by anything they saw in the mass media. Generally students whose impression of physics was formed by the mass media find out that actual physics has no resemblance whatsoever to anything seen in the media.

AI summary: "Approximately 50% to nearly 70% of U.S. undergraduate students who initially declare or intend to major in physics do not graduate with a physics degree. Most of this attrition occurs during the first or second year, though many students do remain within STEM fields, switching to disciplines like engineering."

Fact Sheet
The New Age!