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.
Over the last two decades we have reduced the amount of time spent to get many of the items we need. Since we can now order online from our homes we don’t have to go out and get them, this frees up a reasonable chunk of time.
Also, over the last 50 or so years we have lost many 3rd places. A 3rd place is where you would spend your time that is not work or home. A bar, community center, an arcade…ect. those were a common place to spend time socializing.
Finally, items like reading and watching TV filled a lot of time. From reading the newspaper to getting the local news. Channel surfing was a big thing for a while. You would cycle through channels until you found something you wanted to watch, you could cycle channels for a while before finding something, so that took up a large chunk of time.
Read a book, play card/board/video games, watch movies, listen to radio, go to a public space in your community (parks, squares, etc.)
We used to interact physically with other people…
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.
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.
User name checks out!
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.
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.
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
Windows Solitaire. Or, before Windows, Solitaire with actual playing cards.
There were handheld electronic card game players in the 80’s.
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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.
BMX flatland bicycle tricks. Sometimes even rode a unicycle.
Literally complain about it while sitting on the couch bored
Drugs.
Some tropes of the 80s and 90s: Teenagers ignoring their family while listening to a Walkman. Dads reading the newspaper and ignoring their family. Moms talking on the landline phone with friends and neighhbors. Nerds reading comic books. Dads playing golf. Mom shopping. Teens just “hanging out” at some random place like a parking lot, near a lake, under a bridge, behind the band hall, etc. Smoking. Crossword puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles. Cards.
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
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.
People use smartphones to pass the time?
Under which rock have you been living, and is there space left for me?
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.
