There's something to be said for browsing TV. Having favorites channels and recalling between two different shows between commercials. Sucks if commercials were synced.
Like, some films I wouldn't put on voluntarily but I'd watch if I caught it on you know? Also found a lot of new stuff I wouldn't have otherwise seen.
Back in the 80s TV where I lived used to show Bollywood films at about 1am, which was when I got home from work. So I started watching this film, which was apparently a romance. Sparky career woman rejects advances of handsome fellow. Everyone starts singing and dancing. Ok, a musical then. Thugs burst in and shoot the place up. Woman’s father is killed, she swears vengeance. Uh ok… Local politician tries to shut down newspaper our heroine has just inherited, handsome fellow intervenes. More singing and dancing, ending in fireworks! which is apparently Bollywood for hot sex. Plot twist, handsome fellow is actually a baddie! I had to stop watching at 4am, no idea how it ended up.
At 10pm on a weekday? I mean I get chatting to your significant other about stuff but outside of that I don’t see anything happening even if we removed phones from the equation.
I mean that’s not interacting with other people on a weeknight is all haha.
I don’t feel bad texting (or replying here late at night) but I wouldn’t go knock on my neighbors’s door past 8 and expect to talk to them or anything like that.
God that was the worst. Nothing good on TV. Nothing good to eat in the fridge. Too hot to go for a walk. It's a school night, so your friends can't come out to play yet. Just sitting there staring at the street as cars go by.
Read books, read newspapers, chat on the land-line phone for hours.
Before the cliché of everyone being with their faces in smartphones there were clichés about husbands who do nothing but read newspapers all day, or teenage daughters that massively inflate the phone bill because she's talking with her friends for hours, or children with square eyes watching brain rotting cartoons all day.
We had something like e-readers and they didn't need recharging as they were made out of dead trees. But each one held just one book, so you had to take a bunch of them to the bathroom with you.
This reminds me of the time I checked out all the Dune books from the library, they were all hardbacks and the stack was nearly 2 feet high. The librarian was like, "You're not going to read all that before they're due" She was right but she let me check them all out anyway.
Ah, the panic of having to use the bathroom so severely you can't make it to your book or magazine in time. Oh look, I wonder what Methyllaurelsulfate does?
I always thought the bathroom reader books were tacky and stupid, then a I got a couple and they came in clutch so many times.
Now that I have a phone, I think it's kinda gross to have items out for everyone to touch while using the toilet. Weird how perception changes.
I used to grab anything I could to read when taking a shit. Even reading shampoo bottle labels. Now I'm here typing this mess to you guys as I take a dump.
Had conversations. Went outside. Did stuff. Had real hobbies. People were much less lame. Smartphones aren't even smart. They just have The internet. If they were smart, people wouldn't spend the entire time scrolling through dumb shit
And there are articles from newspapers decades ago complaining about people reading and not socializing. Some people just don't want to socialize as much as others. It doesn't make them wrong, it makes them different.
Television was actually fun to watch. Magazines were actually fun to read. Video games were actually fun to play. Hell, playing outside was fun. Playing with toys was fun (even as an adult). Spending time with users on early internet forums was also very fun. Music was much more aesthetically pleasing to listen to (at least the hits of the 00s were, imo). We fidgeted with literally anything we could think of. Pens, rulers, balls (it's not what you think), toys, even our own fingers.
It was really easy to get bored back then too, but at least it was really easy to escape boredom back then.
Magazines were well written, articles were new and fresh. The CNN 24 news cycle brought mass distribution of the news but before that you tuned in for the scheduled news hour you liked
I was getting my vehicle worked over recently. At the time I was listening to a podcast. A couple other people, probably early 50s were chatting. The old dude in the corner, likely around 70-80 was just sitting there hands empty, looking around, reading nothing like some kind of psychopath.
Whoaaa whoa, whoa now. I don't want the block demolished. Psycho old man strength vs shooty patootie police? I was just there for an oil change and to check on some potential damage.
Let me tell you a tale about downloading erotic jpeg files over 28k modems and stitching them back together, in which the image file was split into pieces, uuencoded and posted on Usenet.
Playing outside a lot more, which was really fun. Hit the beach or swim docks and jumped off the highdives. Went camping. Bike adventures, etc. Lots more physical toys like nerf, Lego, beyblades, etc. CD music players, cassette music players, or MP3 music players, depending on the era.
People on the metro buses would read the paper to pass the time, listen to music, or read a book.
Back then, you could rent videos or games at a rental place, and there were many more physical hobby shops (there still are, but for live stuff, like aquariums now). Malls were a lot more alive and were true third places. Though even back then, I found people gorging themselves in a materialistic frenzy rather...distasteful. People still do it, just via Amazon and fast fashion online.
The biggest things I remember were how chill people were, the ubiquity of newspapers, smoking and cigarette holders outside, a lack of really any graffiti, and people being incredibly chill and a bit more open. There were also like, zero bike lanes or rail, so everyone drove everywhere.
You ever stand behind a couple of geezers in line somewhere and they start talking about some random stuff? They didn’t know each other. They were just bored.
I clearly remember 10-year-old me lying on the floor watching Sunday morning tv. Soccer, football and the rest of the world, was on. I was bored out of my skull.
Flash Forward 50 years, can't get a freaking moment to myself.
I mean, if you want an answer to that you could just stop using your smartphone for a few weeks and see what your brain comes up with. Here's a short list of some examples that were popular when I was a kid and smartphones did not exist yet:
Magazines, the daily newspaper, books, going out and exploring, shopping at malls, doing a hobby or craft, personal projects, television, chit-chatting with friends or even strangers, video games, puzzles, play with your pets, exercise, play sports, sitting quietly and being alone with your thoughts.
For toilet time there was riveting reading material such as: Shampoo ingredients. Hand soap ingredients. Bodywash ingredients. The latter two assuming it wasn’t bar soap.
Maybe someone was around to bring you a magazine… or tell you to hurry up and finish and get it yourself.
Clearly I don’t read even now, as my comment is a more or less the same as others here, and a day late.
Ride bikes, go on adventures in the woods, break sticks, throw rocks in a pond, read books and encyclopedia, talk about wild imaginary adventures, see what can be hit with a BB gun
As a kid, we were constantly outside. In the summer, spend all day in the pool. Three seasons, in the woods. Any time, playing with neighbor kids. Winter, skiing, sledding, snow forts
Without doom scrolling, we had time for actual activities. Marathons of Risk or Monopoly. Assembling and painting scale models. Building, fixing, or repairing whatever needed it
Usually I use my phone when I an sitting around waiting for something. In those times, before I had a phone, I would always think about things I could and should make, and the techniques and mechanics of how they would work.
I read a bunch, and played a lot of video games. I am on the older-end of Gen z, so smartphones only became a thing when I was older, so most of my childhood was spent on computers running a mix of windows 98, Windows XP, and eventually Linux, where I got most of my books and almost all my games.
I watched a lot of TV and browsed the Internet on my desktop. Now I can just do these things while I'm on the go lol although I still do it just the same at home too
There's something to be said for browsing TV. Having favorites channels and recalling between two different shows between commercials. Sucks if commercials were synced.
Like, some films I wouldn't put on voluntarily but I'd watch if I caught it on you know? Also found a lot of new stuff I wouldn't have otherwise seen.
It's interesting how some movies suck you in even though they're definitely aren't your thing.
Back in the 80s TV where I lived used to show Bollywood films at about 1am, which was when I got home from work. So I started watching this film, which was apparently a romance. Sparky career woman rejects advances of handsome fellow. Everyone starts singing and dancing. Ok, a musical then. Thugs burst in and shoot the place up. Woman’s father is killed, she swears vengeance. Uh ok… Local politician tries to shut down newspaper our heroine has just inherited, handsome fellow intervenes. More singing and dancing, ending in fireworks! which is apparently Bollywood for hot sex. Plot twist, handsome fellow is actually a baddie! I had to stop watching at 4am, no idea how it ended up.
When in the bathroom, the marketing and ingredients to all the shampoos were read.
Some people had magazine racks next to the toilet. There was a whole Seinfeld episode about George taking a book into the bathroom.
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader, new book annually, great way to pass the time on the toilet.
I have learned a lot about you, looking through your post history. Would you mind looking through mine?
the fuck
I don't know, but I looked through your post history and I was rather less impressed. :(
Me too buddy, me too
We used to interact physically with other people..
User name checks out!
At 10pm on a weekday? I mean I get chatting to your significant other about stuff but outside of that I don’t see anything happening even if we removed phones from the equation.
They used to have these things called "books", before they were all banned.
That’s not physically interacting with people though?
LMAO..
You'd be surprised how many phone calls took place at that time.
Mayne talking about a show, or chatting someone up, etc. You were bored, so a phone was great.
Fair enough.
I didn’t consider a phone call from a dumb phone as human contact. Guess it goes to show how much I conflate phone with smart phone now.
Go to bed early, sleep well, wake up for a whole new day feeling refreshed.
I mean that’s not interacting with other people on a weeknight is all haha.
I don’t feel bad texting (or replying here late at night) but I wouldn’t go knock on my neighbors’s door past 8 and expect to talk to them or anything like that.
Sometimes, you just had to suffer being bored. And it gave you time to really think.
God that was the worst. Nothing good on TV. Nothing good to eat in the fridge. Too hot to go for a walk. It's a school night, so your friends can't come out to play yet. Just sitting there staring at the street as cars go by.
Reading books. Not audiobooks. Not podcasts. Books.
Thinking quietly is an occupation.
Yeah, why work for free?
Read books, read newspapers, chat on the land-line phone for hours.
Before the cliché of everyone being with their faces in smartphones there were clichés about husbands who do nothing but read newspapers all day, or teenage daughters that massively inflate the phone bill because she's talking with her friends for hours, or children with square eyes watching brain rotting cartoons all day.
We had something like e-readers and they didn't need recharging as they were made out of dead trees. But each one held just one book, so you had to take a bunch of them to the bathroom with you.
Readers Digest contained multiple books in one volume
They were abridged though.
Right. There were also Ace Doubles, but you had to be good at reading upside down if you wanted to use both halves.
This reminds me of the time I checked out all the Dune books from the library, they were all hardbacks and the stack was nearly 2 feet high. The librarian was like, "You're not going to read all that before they're due" She was right but she let me check them all out anyway.
Phone bad book gud
I remember reading any text i found while beeing on toilette when i was a kid(even shampoo ingredients).
Ah, the panic of having to use the bathroom so severely you can't make it to your book or magazine in time. Oh look, I wonder what Methyllaurelsulfate does?
I always thought the bathroom reader books were tacky and stupid, then a I got a couple and they came in clutch so many times.
Now that I have a phone, I think it's kinda gross to have items out for everyone to touch while using the toilet. Weird how perception changes.
Methylisothiazolinone, what mysteries do you hide?
yea same I was reading everything that vaguely resembled a string of characters
I used to grab anything I could to read when taking a shit. Even reading shampoo bottle labels. Now I'm here typing this mess to you guys as I take a dump.
I prefer the phrase 'giving a dump', because I sure don't seem to be taking anything away from the transaction.
Alas I have digressed. I too indulged in the literary expositions of the shampoo bottle. Conditioner only on Fridays.
Same. I'd go through cabinets to find shit to read.
Pinch it and GTFO! Others need to use the bathroom too!
Had conversations. Went outside. Did stuff. Had real hobbies. People were much less lame. Smartphones aren't even smart. They just have The internet. If they were smart, people wouldn't spend the entire time scrolling through dumb shit
And there are articles from newspapers decades ago complaining about people reading and not socializing. Some people just don't want to socialize as much as others. It doesn't make them wrong, it makes them different.
Read.
Read a book, play card/board/video games, watch movies, listen to radio, go to a public space in your community (parks, squares, etc.)
Books before, still books.
Books before, now ebooks while avoiding Amazon like the plague
Threw rocks at stuff.
Trains, signs, each other,
Peed off of tall stuff.
Ride bikes.
Try to build ramps for the bikes.
Crash the bikes.
Ask your mom for a popsicle cause you have a fat lip now from hitting your face on your bikes handlebars.
Generally dumb things.
Freak out cause the kid s few doors down got his hands on some dry ice.
But the dry ice in bottles.
Run away when that nosy old lady calls the police cause people are "making bombs"
Suspiciously specific
I did not do half of that, but I did more than half of what you did not list, with glee.
I used to pull a random Encyclopedia off the shelf and find something interesting to read about.
Yep, did that
We also were bored quite much. We also did lots of slightly less boring things like just runnung around, reading half bad books or learning assembler.
Reading, TV, video games, studying, crafts/hobbies
Television was actually fun to watch. Magazines were actually fun to read. Video games were actually fun to play. Hell, playing outside was fun. Playing with toys was fun (even as an adult). Spending time with users on early internet forums was also very fun. Music was much more aesthetically pleasing to listen to (at least the hits of the 00s were, imo). We fidgeted with literally anything we could think of. Pens, rulers, balls (it's not what you think), toys, even our own fingers.
It was really easy to get bored back then too, but at least it was really easy to escape boredom back then.
Magazines were well written, articles were new and fresh. The CNN 24 news cycle brought mass distribution of the news but before that you tuned in for the scheduled news hour you liked
Back when you had to tune in for basically everything
I remember being excited for pc gamer to show up in the mail
Those were the good ol' days.
Listened to music. Hung out in a diner and had coffee & fries all night with friends. Hung out at the mall. Got drunk. Had sex.
I was getting my vehicle worked over recently. At the time I was listening to a podcast. A couple other people, probably early 50s were chatting. The old dude in the corner, likely around 70-80 was just sitting there hands empty, looking around, reading nothing like some kind of psychopath.
For 40 minutes.
He did nothing.
It was honestly rather impressive.
I would have called the cops
Whoaaa whoa, whoa now. I don't want the block demolished. Psycho old man strength vs shooty patootie police? I was just there for an oil change and to check on some potential damage.
Windows Solitaire. Or, before Windows, Solitaire with actual playing cards.
There were handheld electronic card game players in the 80's.
Read books. Make stuff from said books Show friends the stuff you made from books. Drink beer and watch sports and other hobbys.
Let me tell you a tale about downloading erotic jpeg files over 28k modems and stitching them back together, in which the image file was split into pieces, uuencoded and posted on Usenet.
Playing outside a lot more, which was really fun. Hit the beach or swim docks and jumped off the highdives. Went camping. Bike adventures, etc. Lots more physical toys like nerf, Lego, beyblades, etc. CD music players, cassette music players, or MP3 music players, depending on the era.
People on the metro buses would read the paper to pass the time, listen to music, or read a book.
Back then, you could rent videos or games at a rental place, and there were many more physical hobby shops (there still are, but for live stuff, like aquariums now). Malls were a lot more alive and were true third places. Though even back then, I found people gorging themselves in a materialistic frenzy rather...distasteful. People still do it, just via Amazon and fast fashion online.
The biggest things I remember were how chill people were, the ubiquity of newspapers, smoking and cigarette holders outside, a lack of really any graffiti, and people being incredibly chill and a bit more open. There were also like, zero bike lanes or rail, so everyone drove everywhere.
You ever stand behind a couple of geezers in line somewhere and they start talking about some random stuff? They didn’t know each other. They were just bored.
Holy shit, I didn't expect that question in , fuck I am old.
I clearly remember 10-year-old me lying on the floor watching Sunday morning tv. Soccer, football and the rest of the world, was on. I was bored out of my skull.
Flash Forward 50 years, can't get a freaking moment to myself.
I mean, if you want an answer to that you could just stop using your smartphone for a few weeks and see what your brain comes up with. Here's a short list of some examples that were popular when I was a kid and smartphones did not exist yet:
Magazines, the daily newspaper, books, going out and exploring, shopping at malls, doing a hobby or craft, personal projects, television, chit-chatting with friends or even strangers, video games, puzzles, play with your pets, exercise, play sports, sitting quietly and being alone with your thoughts.
For toilet time there was riveting reading material such as: Shampoo ingredients. Hand soap ingredients. Bodywash ingredients. The latter two assuming it wasn’t bar soap.
Maybe someone was around to bring you a magazine… or tell you to hurry up and finish and get it yourself.
Clearly I don’t read even now, as my comment is a more or less the same as others here, and a day late.
Read books. Cereal boxes. Ride bikes and fuck around.
Ride bikes, go on adventures in the woods, break sticks, throw rocks in a pond, read books and encyclopedia, talk about wild imaginary adventures, see what can be hit with a BB gun
In addition to reading ….
As a kid, we were constantly outside. In the summer, spend all day in the pool. Three seasons, in the woods. Any time, playing with neighbor kids. Winter, skiing, sledding, snow forts
Without doom scrolling, we had time for actual activities. Marathons of Risk or Monopoly. Assembling and painting scale models. Building, fixing, or repairing whatever needed it
Born in the late 70s, I only recall being bored when my parents made me go to mass, or waiting while they did adult stuff like going to the bank.
Horsing around with my brother or playing with the Casio stopwatch kept us sane.
At home it was TV, Legos, music and bikes
Same thing I do now. TV, video games, find something to do with friends.
There wasn't so much boredom, because there were no smartphones.
Gameboy and Walkmans
I had a Game Boy, that got a lot of use.
We were bored.
It looks like a fair bit of it was TV-watching, which is now being displaced.
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https://cdn.cablecompare.com/2022/2/1644941050238-1._Average_Daily_Time_Spent_Watching_Television%2C_United_States_2014-2023.png
About the only time our TV gets turned on anymore is for 1) videogames or 2) watching youtube.
It’s mostly just a giant monitor at this point
Read books, play videogames, go outside and beat each other with sticks...
Usually I use my phone when I an sitting around waiting for something. In those times, before I had a phone, I would always think about things I could and should make, and the techniques and mechanics of how they would work.
BMX flatland bicycle tricks. Sometimes even rode a unicycle.
I read magazines, played videogames, watched TV, went "out and about", browsed the net, etc.
I'm surprised nobody said wank yet.
Are you confessing?
Oh absolutely. I got my first smartphone when I was 20 years or so, so you can imagine what hitting puberty was like.
Literally complain about it while sitting on the couch bored
Comic books. And those weird bathroom readers.
I read a bunch, and played a lot of video games. I am on the older-end of Gen z, so smartphones only became a thing when I was older, so most of my childhood was spent on computers running a mix of windows 98, Windows XP, and eventually Linux, where I got most of my books and almost all my games.
Read books.
Child me draws.
Adult me thinks.
You know why we lack philosophy now
I think I used to eat mud when I was bored.
I used to buy these little pocket-sized Sudoku books that I'd keep with me, usually play a puzzle or two while commuting to work or something.
I used to draw anytime there wasn't something to do, which was most of the time. Now it's my job
Pokemon on Gameboy. Physical books and comics. Sketching.
Shampoo bottles while pooping.
No one has mentioned magazines or newspapers yet.
Dream about the day we could install Windows on our cell phones and carry our computers with us everywhere. And play snake on our dumb phones.
Before smartphones we had snake and Tetris on non smart phones and we liked it. Before that books and news papers were popular.
Listen the ringtones and play games I have on my Nokia cell phone
I watched a lot of TV and browsed the Internet on my desktop. Now I can just do these things while I'm on the go lol although I still do it just the same at home too
Music, books and TV.
Cross-section books.
Drugs.
Having sex. Maybe.
Don't judge me, it's all about statistics.
What did people do when I was bored?
They were doing fun things that I didn't want to do. Maybe play sports, or experiment with drugs? Lol
Counter-Strike
Books, same as I do now as well.
I take your point but I'd like to say I can't remember being bored since I was a kid and that was because you were forced to and I'm 57 now.
masturbate maybe
I had seventh generation game consoles before anyone I knew had a smartphone.
People use smartphones to pass the time?
Under which rock have you been living, and is there space left for me?
We have lots of space here... unfortunately, it's also the only thing we have enough of.
They probably went out to harass the opposite sex for something interactive.