What Did People Do Before Smartphones?
July 8, 2023 9:46 AM Subscribe
Over the years that followed, I kept clicking on my keyboard phones until eventually the iPhone replaced them. I have memories of using a Palm Treo on the train and my BlackBerry at lunch through most of the 2000s. But I can’t remember how I’d spent my idle time in the years before, on the train or at lunch or at any other time of day when we found ourselves between things. Literally, what did we do? I cannot recall. (SLAtlantic, ungated)
I usually had, like, a portable music-listening device, a book, a magazine, and a GameBoy, or at least one of these things, on hand at any given moment.
My generation’s penchant for malaise must be a direct result of being alone with ourselves so much, with so little reason.
Ian Bogost is 46.
posted by box at 10:02 AM on July 8, 2023 [23 favorites]
My generation’s penchant for malaise must be a direct result of being alone with ourselves so much, with so little reason.
Ian Bogost is 46.
posted by box at 10:02 AM on July 8, 2023 [23 favorites]
Staring blankly out of the window of a bus while your mind roams is underrated, for starters.
posted by penguin pie at 10:02 AM on July 8, 2023 [176 favorites]
posted by penguin pie at 10:02 AM on July 8, 2023 [176 favorites]
I used to read a shit-ton of books. I was always carrying one around, mostly fiction/sci-fi and mostly paperback. Now (aside from being on Metafilter, and looking for good memes to share with my friends) the majority of my reading is online, and mostly non-fiction.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:03 AM on July 8, 2023 [31 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:03 AM on July 8, 2023 [31 favorites]
I cannot overemphasize how little there was to do before we all had smartphones.
The article addresses this, but there were literally newspapers everywhere throughout the 20th century. Even in the late 90s, there were boxes on the corner, or you could grab a paper at the bodega for a quarter. Free alt-weeklies were in the entrance of every casual restaurant or diner. Hundreds and hundreds of pages of content at your fingertips, almost everywhere in any urban environment.
posted by eschatfische at 10:06 AM on July 8, 2023 [150 favorites]
The article addresses this, but there were literally newspapers everywhere throughout the 20th century. Even in the late 90s, there were boxes on the corner, or you could grab a paper at the bodega for a quarter. Free alt-weeklies were in the entrance of every casual restaurant or diner. Hundreds and hundreds of pages of content at your fingertips, almost everywhere in any urban environment.
posted by eschatfische at 10:06 AM on July 8, 2023 [150 favorites]
Books for me too. I think I reread the HP series about 10 times living in S. Korea. English language books weren't hard to get, per se. Just expensive.
posted by kathrynm at 10:06 AM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by kathrynm at 10:06 AM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
Book or newspaper. Do the crossword if you finish the paper. I don't remember being more bored just waiting for things. I think this guy just has a short attention span.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 10:07 AM on July 8, 2023 [27 favorites]
posted by TheophileEscargot at 10:07 AM on July 8, 2023 [27 favorites]
Books, magazines, newspapers. There was an endless supply.
My neighbor and I were one of the last holdouts on our commuter train. We both read the newspaper every morning on the way to work.
I finally started reading books etc on my phone around 2018 or so.
posted by freakazoid at 10:08 AM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
My neighbor and I were one of the last holdouts on our commuter train. We both read the newspaper every morning on the way to work.
I finally started reading books etc on my phone around 2018 or so.
posted by freakazoid at 10:08 AM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
Television was another way of killing time. We watched a lot of it. Game shows, daytime soaps, sitcoms, the evening news, MTV—television was just sort of on, sort of all the time. In homes, if people were there to watch them. But also in airports, doctors’ offices, and laundromats.
I don't feel like that has changed much since the advent of smartphones. TVs are still everywhere, they're just now also on our phones.
The article touches on newspapers and magazines, but I think that's actually one of the biggest changes. It's almost entirely gone now, but time was that printed newspapers and magazines were readily available on board flights, particularly international ones and in business and first class. Newsstands used to be a much bigger fixture. The move away from paid print journalism has not been an unalloyed good.
The article also completely neglects portable music players and video games, which have been a rather popular way to spend idle time for a few decades now, at least since the Sony Walkman in 1979 and the Game Boy in 1989.
posted by jedicus at 10:08 AM on July 8, 2023 [16 favorites]
I don't feel like that has changed much since the advent of smartphones. TVs are still everywhere, they're just now also on our phones.
The article touches on newspapers and magazines, but I think that's actually one of the biggest changes. It's almost entirely gone now, but time was that printed newspapers and magazines were readily available on board flights, particularly international ones and in business and first class. Newsstands used to be a much bigger fixture. The move away from paid print journalism has not been an unalloyed good.
The article also completely neglects portable music players and video games, which have been a rather popular way to spend idle time for a few decades now, at least since the Sony Walkman in 1979 and the Game Boy in 1989.
posted by jedicus at 10:08 AM on July 8, 2023 [16 favorites]
Looked out the window or listened to my Walkman. Or thought about good things or bad.
Then there's the people who make up stories in their head all day without even trying, it's just how their brain is, I've read (probably on here)
posted by serena15221 at 10:09 AM on July 8, 2023 [10 favorites]
Then there's the people who make up stories in their head all day without even trying, it's just how their brain is, I've read (probably on here)
posted by serena15221 at 10:09 AM on July 8, 2023 [10 favorites]
This is the most cynical "CLICK THIS AND ARGUE ABOUT IT ON SOCIAL MEDIA" article I've ever read in my life and I absolutely refuse to take the bait.
posted by potrzebie at 10:10 AM on July 8, 2023 [61 favorites]
posted by potrzebie at 10:10 AM on July 8, 2023 [61 favorites]
One thing I think younger people sometimes get wrong is that they're viewing the past through the lens of the present - for instance, they only know a life with smartphones, so they can't imagine a life without them. But for those who lived before smartphones even existed, they existed without the knowledge of smartphones, so they didn't miss them.
Like imagining a world without electricity - well, people got on with Life not even knowing to wish they had it.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:11 AM on July 8, 2023 [17 favorites]
Like imagining a world without electricity - well, people got on with Life not even knowing to wish they had it.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:11 AM on July 8, 2023 [17 favorites]
one thing we still had before the internet was making up a weird guy to be mad at, you just couldn’t do co-op back in the day
posted by cortex at 10:12 AM on July 8, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by cortex at 10:12 AM on July 8, 2023 [12 favorites]
Ian Bogost is 46.
Second time I’ve seen him come up recently and I have to say he rubs me the wrong way a bit. Not a review of the post, just a review of… the guy.
posted by atoxyl at 10:12 AM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
Second time I’ve seen him come up recently and I have to say he rubs me the wrong way a bit. Not a review of the post, just a review of… the guy.
posted by atoxyl at 10:12 AM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
Being alone with yourself is good, actually, and while there are certainly many advantages to phones, social media, etc, it is good to have some empty time to just sit and think, remember, imagine, reason, tell yourself stories, etc. I'd say that it's a bad thing for most people if they can't handle ten or twenty minutes of introspection, and it's good when people can just, say, take a bus somewhere and spend the time looking out the window and mulling.
Man, amusing ourselves to death, right? The sheer number of cyclists who have to have speakers on their bikes now - like even being along with yourself on a bike ride is too much, you have to have electronic stimulation.
posted by Frowner at 10:13 AM on July 8, 2023 [30 favorites]
Man, amusing ourselves to death, right? The sheer number of cyclists who have to have speakers on their bikes now - like even being along with yourself on a bike ride is too much, you have to have electronic stimulation.
posted by Frowner at 10:13 AM on July 8, 2023 [30 favorites]
We waited. It wasn't character building, it was awful.
posted by Selena777 at 10:13 AM on July 8, 2023 [14 favorites]
posted by Selena777 at 10:13 AM on July 8, 2023 [14 favorites]
A spine-chilling revelation: We couldn’t remember what we did, because there was nothing to remember having done.
I cannot overemphasize how little there was to do before we all had smartphones.
My generation’s penchant for malaise must be a direct result of being alone with ourselves so much, with so little reason.
Before smartphones, people didn’t invest their in-between time into forging social bonds or doing self-improvement.
While reading this I kept thinking, is this a parody? But clearly, he's serious. I couldn't disagree more though.
I was a late adopter to smart phones (my first was in 2015), so it's pretty easy for me to remember my life before having one. Like others, I do think I read more books/long-form journalism, because I always had some sort of reading material on me whenever I did errands, met a friend somewhere, traveled by public transport, etc. If there was a chance I'd have to wait, I had reading material. Or I'd bring a sketchbook. Or I'd just space out/think about whatever - it was fine.
But anyway, the main point his article is missing, is that the problem is not that people use smart phones or the Internet to kill time while waiting for their dentist appointment, but that some people look at their phones constantly, even when they're out with friends or on a date. Or when they might otherwise be engaged in some meaningful hobby.
posted by coffeecat at 10:15 AM on July 8, 2023 [29 favorites]
I cannot overemphasize how little there was to do before we all had smartphones.
My generation’s penchant for malaise must be a direct result of being alone with ourselves so much, with so little reason.
Before smartphones, people didn’t invest their in-between time into forging social bonds or doing self-improvement.
While reading this I kept thinking, is this a parody? But clearly, he's serious. I couldn't disagree more though.
I was a late adopter to smart phones (my first was in 2015), so it's pretty easy for me to remember my life before having one. Like others, I do think I read more books/long-form journalism, because I always had some sort of reading material on me whenever I did errands, met a friend somewhere, traveled by public transport, etc. If there was a chance I'd have to wait, I had reading material. Or I'd bring a sketchbook. Or I'd just space out/think about whatever - it was fine.
But anyway, the main point his article is missing, is that the problem is not that people use smart phones or the Internet to kill time while waiting for their dentist appointment, but that some people look at their phones constantly, even when they're out with friends or on a date. Or when they might otherwise be engaged in some meaningful hobby.
posted by coffeecat at 10:15 AM on July 8, 2023 [29 favorites]
I cannot overemphasize how little there was to do before we all had smartphones.
Well, nothing that required your nose stuck in a screen all day, anyway.
We listened to music with friends, talked with friends, had drinks with friends, had dinner with friends, got high with friends, went to bed with friends, consoled friends, did homework with friends, watched tv with friends, argued politics with friends, walked around with friends, helped friends move, watched movies with friends, played games with friends...
posted by Thorzdad at 10:16 AM on July 8, 2023 [30 favorites]
Well, nothing that required your nose stuck in a screen all day, anyway.
We listened to music with friends, talked with friends, had drinks with friends, had dinner with friends, got high with friends, went to bed with friends, consoled friends, did homework with friends, watched tv with friends, argued politics with friends, walked around with friends, helped friends move, watched movies with friends, played games with friends...
posted by Thorzdad at 10:16 AM on July 8, 2023 [30 favorites]
I did all the same things I do now - read books, read newspapers, wrote, listened to music while staring out the window and letting my mind wander - I just did it all on a variety of different tools and devices instead of just one.
Actually, as a compulsive and very fast reader, the one thing I think I'd seriously struggle without if smart phones suddenly disappeared is the ability to carry a nearly infinite supply of books around in my back pocket.
posted by BlueNorther at 10:16 AM on July 8, 2023 [13 favorites]
Actually, as a compulsive and very fast reader, the one thing I think I'd seriously struggle without if smart phones suddenly disappeared is the ability to carry a nearly infinite supply of books around in my back pocket.
posted by BlueNorther at 10:16 AM on July 8, 2023 [13 favorites]
We were never being bored, cause we were never being boring, as the fellow said.
posted by Frowner at 10:17 AM on July 8, 2023 [21 favorites]
posted by Frowner at 10:17 AM on July 8, 2023 [21 favorites]
smartphones? HA! good luck explaining (without using any resource only your verbal words and your hands) ditto paper and mimeograph machines
posted by robbyrobs at 10:18 AM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by robbyrobs at 10:18 AM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Great article. I think there is a tendency to “rose colored glasses” memories of life pre-Smartphones, with the idea that sitting idly with your own thoughts was ever this wonderful experience. Personally, I just remember a number of experiences I used to dread because I knew I would be bored out of my skull. Things like waiting in a doctor’s office, waiting to board a plane, taking a long car or train ride, doing a mindless household chore. Having a tool that keeps me engaged makes all of those experiences so much more pleasant today.
I am not at all exaggerating when I say I think my Smartphone has made me a better husband. The number of chores I used to avoid until the last minute or want equity in performing I now gladly volunteer for since they are no longer “chores” but “unadultered podcast listening time”.
posted by The Gooch at 10:19 AM on July 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
I am not at all exaggerating when I say I think my Smartphone has made me a better husband. The number of chores I used to avoid until the last minute or want equity in performing I now gladly volunteer for since they are no longer “chores” but “unadultered podcast listening time”.
posted by The Gooch at 10:19 AM on July 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
Ian Bogost has written a series of books on the aesthetics, psychology, and sociology of game design that might be the definitive books on understanding ludic experiences as art.
He also made Cow Clicker, a parody of clickbait Facebook games that became a popular clickbait game in its own right.
For years now, I've been trying to suss out whether his Atlantic column is an extended attempt to do for thoughtpieces what Cow Clicker did to Farmville, or whether he's just kind of a cranky nerd whose impulse thoughts really do not lend themselves to shorter forms. It's kind of fascinating either way, because the gulf between who he is as an author and who he is as a columnist is hilariously vast.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 10:21 AM on July 8, 2023 [22 favorites]
He also made Cow Clicker, a parody of clickbait Facebook games that became a popular clickbait game in its own right.
For years now, I've been trying to suss out whether his Atlantic column is an extended attempt to do for thoughtpieces what Cow Clicker did to Farmville, or whether he's just kind of a cranky nerd whose impulse thoughts really do not lend themselves to shorter forms. It's kind of fascinating either way, because the gulf between who he is as an author and who he is as a columnist is hilariously vast.
posted by Tom Hanks Cannot Be Trusted at 10:21 AM on July 8, 2023 [22 favorites]
Listened to cassettes on my epic Sony Sportsman while reading a physical book.
Part of me wants to believe that at some point I packed up my Sportsman and it's still in some box I've yet to find and open after numerous household moves.
Before Walkmans came along I at least almost always had a book with me. Or a newspaper.
Staring blankly out of the window of a bus while your mind roams is underrated, for starters.
This is so true. Or just get captivated by the street life of Manhattan (or wherever you were).
Witnessed a police shootout on the street during one bus trip, might have missed that if I had modern noise-canceling earbuds cranking music. Drove home how unrealistic TV gunshot sounds are!
posted by Ayn Marx at 10:23 AM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
Part of me wants to believe that at some point I packed up my Sportsman and it's still in some box I've yet to find and open after numerous household moves.
Before Walkmans came along I at least almost always had a book with me. Or a newspaper.
Staring blankly out of the window of a bus while your mind roams is underrated, for starters.
This is so true. Or just get captivated by the street life of Manhattan (or wherever you were).
Witnessed a police shootout on the street during one bus trip, might have missed that if I had modern noise-canceling earbuds cranking music. Drove home how unrealistic TV gunshot sounds are!
posted by Ayn Marx at 10:23 AM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
It was just like the days before television.
posted by migurski at 10:34 AM on July 8, 2023 [11 favorites]
posted by migurski at 10:34 AM on July 8, 2023 [11 favorites]
When alone I could usually keep myself entertained by just looking around at stuff or people watching. If at home, just randomly call friends on the landline until you got someone feeling chatty, maybe watch the same tv show and chat about it. Make plans to hang out on the weekends, wander around the mall, go to the record shop, throw on MTV (back when they showed videos) and play games, go to the video store and rent a move and get movie munchies from the store on the way back home, listen to music together, hang out at Perkins/Ihop/Waffle House, go to a park with a radio and toss a frisbee around. And as noted above, most places you went had some free local alt-weeklies with lots of listings for things to do, and magazines were a lot more interesting and varied as well. Getting the latest issue of your music rag of choice was always an excuse to get together and go through it.
posted by indexy at 10:36 AM on July 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by indexy at 10:36 AM on July 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
I cannot overemphasize how little there was to do before we all had smartphones.
Tl;Dr;don't care; I was reading a book 'between things' before, during and after "we" all had smartphones.
posted by Rash at 10:38 AM on July 8, 2023 [11 favorites]
Tl;Dr;don't care; I was reading a book 'between things' before, during and after "we" all had smartphones.
posted by Rash at 10:38 AM on July 8, 2023 [11 favorites]
television was just sort of on, sort of all the time
The late Edwin Newman of NBC called it "audio wallpaper".
posted by gimonca at 10:43 AM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
The late Edwin Newman of NBC called it "audio wallpaper".
posted by gimonca at 10:43 AM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm the same age as this guy and I have literally no idea what he's talking about. Back in 1995, when I started doing grown-up stuff like commuting on public transit and eating lunch by myself, my everyday carry included a paperback book, my Walkman (later iPod), and a notebook where I could jot down fragments of story ideas, from-life observations, and general brain nonsense. If all of those failed me, there were always the above-mentioned free newspapers.
posted by merriment at 10:44 AM on July 8, 2023 [22 favorites]
posted by merriment at 10:44 AM on July 8, 2023 [22 favorites]
Second time I’ve seen him come up recently and I have to say he rubs me the wrong way a bit. Not a review of the post, just a review of… the guy.
Based on other things that he's written, I suspect that Bogost has found out that one way to drive clicks and engagement is simply to be deliberately full of shit and get people to show up to say, "nuh-uh." The alternative is that this allegedly smart man has never heard of the paperback, which term does not occur once in his piece. Granted, there's been a gradual increase in the size of paperback books; the typical paperback used to fit quite easily in a pants or jacket pocket, and approximated the size of your modern smartphone. (They also tended to be shorter.) Reading a paperback, even (or especially) if it was a piece of genre hackwork, was an excellent time-killer before the era of Walkmen. (I had difficulty with Walkman-type cassette players because stereo-to-mono earphones that could accommodate my single-sided hearing loss were basically nonexistent.) Driving the utility of paperbacks for killing time was the fact that, at some bus and train stations, there was a rack of paperbacks that were being given away.
Another term that doesn't occur in this essay is "deck", as in "deck of cards." You needed a bit of flat space in order to lay out a game of solitaire, but it also opened up the possibility of getting into a game with a stranger who was likewise bored. Huh--something else that was roughly smartphone-sized.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:45 AM on July 8, 2023 [14 favorites]
Based on other things that he's written, I suspect that Bogost has found out that one way to drive clicks and engagement is simply to be deliberately full of shit and get people to show up to say, "nuh-uh." The alternative is that this allegedly smart man has never heard of the paperback, which term does not occur once in his piece. Granted, there's been a gradual increase in the size of paperback books; the typical paperback used to fit quite easily in a pants or jacket pocket, and approximated the size of your modern smartphone. (They also tended to be shorter.) Reading a paperback, even (or especially) if it was a piece of genre hackwork, was an excellent time-killer before the era of Walkmen. (I had difficulty with Walkman-type cassette players because stereo-to-mono earphones that could accommodate my single-sided hearing loss were basically nonexistent.) Driving the utility of paperbacks for killing time was the fact that, at some bus and train stations, there was a rack of paperbacks that were being given away.
Another term that doesn't occur in this essay is "deck", as in "deck of cards." You needed a bit of flat space in order to lay out a game of solitaire, but it also opened up the possibility of getting into a game with a stranger who was likewise bored. Huh--something else that was roughly smartphone-sized.
posted by Halloween Jack at 10:45 AM on July 8, 2023 [14 favorites]
I was walking the dog earlier today and I heard the distinct sound of a land line phone ringing from someone's open garage.
That sound is an aberration these days, it was instant nostalgia to a time before even call waiting was a thing.
posted by djseafood at 10:46 AM on July 8, 2023 [9 favorites]
That sound is an aberration these days, it was instant nostalgia to a time before even call waiting was a thing.
posted by djseafood at 10:46 AM on July 8, 2023 [9 favorites]
good luck explaining (without using any resource only your verbal words and your hands) ditto paper and mimeograph machines
Instead of xeroxing your exams they'd use weird printing techniques that were cheaper, obviously lower quality, and much, much harder to use. Some processes resulted in exams that reeked of the chemicals used in the process.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:47 AM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
Instead of xeroxing your exams they'd use weird printing techniques that were cheaper, obviously lower quality, and much, much harder to use. Some processes resulted in exams that reeked of the chemicals used in the process.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 10:47 AM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
Radios, those got tiny generations ago. Radio shows, often an excuse to coordinate hanging out or doing chores.
Dover Dollar Paperbacks! Man, those were great.
posted by clew at 10:58 AM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
Dover Dollar Paperbacks! Man, those were great.
posted by clew at 10:58 AM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
Before smartphones there was also something called people-watching or even talking to strangers. Aforementioned paperbacks, portable music players, weeklies, writing in a notebook, knitting/ crocheting...
The difference between now and then which I like now is if I keep my face down, most of the time, no random people will try to engage in conversation with me. Back then, if you weren't engaged with a book (and sometimes even if you were) random people would start talking to engage in a conversation.
I'm cranky, etc and don't have spoons for that anymore and am happy that I can stick to myself without having a stranger try to talk to me now.
posted by AnyUsernameWillDo at 11:06 AM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
The difference between now and then which I like now is if I keep my face down, most of the time, no random people will try to engage in conversation with me. Back then, if you weren't engaged with a book (and sometimes even if you were) random people would start talking to engage in a conversation.
I'm cranky, etc and don't have spoons for that anymore and am happy that I can stick to myself without having a stranger try to talk to me now.
posted by AnyUsernameWillDo at 11:06 AM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Oh, I forgot about the classic transistor radio. Also pocket-sized, and, conveniently for me, typically equipped with a mono headphone.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:09 AM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:09 AM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
I don't remember being bored at all, if anything I'm more bored now when using my broadband high definition pocket super computer for idle doomscrolling when I could be doing so many other things with it.
What I don't understand or remember is how my friends and peers managed to do the social things we did or managed to meet up as reliably and regularly as we did, and I'm saying that as someone who was very online and mobile long before cell phones or WiFi.
The thought of getting any group and number of people more than 2-3 to go do something like go to an illicit underground warehouse or desert rave without a smartphone, data access, maps and more gives me the willies today and seems so foreign, but I did that hundreds/thousands of times in the 90s.
Though I definitely remember some misadventures, here.
Like my friend that got dropped off near a rave in a warehouse district in LA in his pajamas and slippers (Why pajamas? Did you miss the part about 90s rave?) and he didn't have change for payphones or something, only to find out the party had been busted and everyone was gone and out of reach, so he ended up walking all the way to Hollywood and wandering around till dawn through some legitimately rough neighborhoods during the height of the LAPD Rampart Scandal and crack epidemic until his mom rescued him. (Or something along these lines.)
I know and remember we had payphones, including payphones that could accept calls. Like we had a number of locations like arcades and fast food restaurants where you could hang out and wait for an incoming call... all while pounding Mountain Dew and chain smoking inside right at your table.
I also remember I could pretty reliably go to my local Denny's at like 3 AM and find my kind of alt/goth weirdos in the smoking section drinking coffee and chain smoking cloves.
I remember having specific places like arcades or near the food court of a mall to wait for friends to meet up and assemble and there being some process of consensus where once we had a critical mass of friends we'd wander off and do other things, and if you missed that tipping point you were either out of luck or had to find the group somewhere else and play catch up.
I did have a basic numeric pager at a fairly young age and we had a whole list of secret codes to send one way messages like they were running late or to meet somewhere else.
And for the "very online" part I also had one of those vintage netbook-like CP/M laptops with a built in modem, a text-only LCD screen with no backlight and an assortment of phone cables including an acoustic coupler (Wargames style!) as well as a line with alligator clips for, uh, borrowing a dial tone and line out from access points like the service tunnel at a mall and using the spare FAX/modem testing lines. So we would use that and even take turns to log in to our local BBSes and check for messages about where the party was if we were, say, all ditching school to get high or go hang out at someone's house.
Oh, I also had a cool little tiny pocket phone that was a whole landline phone and DTMF number pad in a plastic device about the size of a Zippo that had a jack for a headset mic and a pair of jacks for RJ-11 phone cables, so I definitely used that to make free phone calls, get voicemails and page people, and even get some incoming calls.
Local phone companies used to have an unpublished number used by field service staff to read back the number you were dialing from, though the numbers were often labeled right on the telco punchdown boards, and if you didn't want that number to actually ring the phone in, say, the Radio Shack it was connected to I could just pull the lines until I received a call, then punch them back in when I was done.
And that laptop was definitely something that most people my age back then did not have and we used it a lot. I even used it at school many, many times just finding a random empty phone jack and knowing how to use ATDT codes to dial 9, then pause, then dial my BBS number to get an outside line. And then use that BBS access to ditch school and meet up with people.
Even with all of that it still feels like a mystery to me how we did any of the things we did and met up so reliably.
And on top of all that we definitely all had walkman or radios and headphones, but I definitely don't miss hauling around a bag full of fragile, expensive tapes and batteries and having to listen to the same tapes over and over again. The age of cheap solid state storage and MP3s couldn't arrive fast enough for me.
And having a Gameboy or other portable game device was also really common, even super basic Game & Watch style LCD games that played only one game.
On a somewhat related tangent, one of the malls I used to hang out in as an 80s and 90s teen is now so derelict that someone started planting corn and vegetables and farming in all of the parking lot islands, and it's slated to be demolished for much needed housing. So that's nice and kind of solarpunk.
posted by loquacious at 11:24 AM on July 8, 2023 [41 favorites]
What I don't understand or remember is how my friends and peers managed to do the social things we did or managed to meet up as reliably and regularly as we did, and I'm saying that as someone who was very online and mobile long before cell phones or WiFi.
The thought of getting any group and number of people more than 2-3 to go do something like go to an illicit underground warehouse or desert rave without a smartphone, data access, maps and more gives me the willies today and seems so foreign, but I did that hundreds/thousands of times in the 90s.
Though I definitely remember some misadventures, here.
Like my friend that got dropped off near a rave in a warehouse district in LA in his pajamas and slippers (Why pajamas? Did you miss the part about 90s rave?) and he didn't have change for payphones or something, only to find out the party had been busted and everyone was gone and out of reach, so he ended up walking all the way to Hollywood and wandering around till dawn through some legitimately rough neighborhoods during the height of the LAPD Rampart Scandal and crack epidemic until his mom rescued him. (Or something along these lines.)
I know and remember we had payphones, including payphones that could accept calls. Like we had a number of locations like arcades and fast food restaurants where you could hang out and wait for an incoming call... all while pounding Mountain Dew and chain smoking inside right at your table.
I also remember I could pretty reliably go to my local Denny's at like 3 AM and find my kind of alt/goth weirdos in the smoking section drinking coffee and chain smoking cloves.
I remember having specific places like arcades or near the food court of a mall to wait for friends to meet up and assemble and there being some process of consensus where once we had a critical mass of friends we'd wander off and do other things, and if you missed that tipping point you were either out of luck or had to find the group somewhere else and play catch up.
I did have a basic numeric pager at a fairly young age and we had a whole list of secret codes to send one way messages like they were running late or to meet somewhere else.
And for the "very online" part I also had one of those vintage netbook-like CP/M laptops with a built in modem, a text-only LCD screen with no backlight and an assortment of phone cables including an acoustic coupler (Wargames style!) as well as a line with alligator clips for, uh, borrowing a dial tone and line out from access points like the service tunnel at a mall and using the spare FAX/modem testing lines. So we would use that and even take turns to log in to our local BBSes and check for messages about where the party was if we were, say, all ditching school to get high or go hang out at someone's house.
Oh, I also had a cool little tiny pocket phone that was a whole landline phone and DTMF number pad in a plastic device about the size of a Zippo that had a jack for a headset mic and a pair of jacks for RJ-11 phone cables, so I definitely used that to make free phone calls, get voicemails and page people, and even get some incoming calls.
Local phone companies used to have an unpublished number used by field service staff to read back the number you were dialing from, though the numbers were often labeled right on the telco punchdown boards, and if you didn't want that number to actually ring the phone in, say, the Radio Shack it was connected to I could just pull the lines until I received a call, then punch them back in when I was done.
And that laptop was definitely something that most people my age back then did not have and we used it a lot. I even used it at school many, many times just finding a random empty phone jack and knowing how to use ATDT codes to dial 9, then pause, then dial my BBS number to get an outside line. And then use that BBS access to ditch school and meet up with people.
Even with all of that it still feels like a mystery to me how we did any of the things we did and met up so reliably.
And on top of all that we definitely all had walkman or radios and headphones, but I definitely don't miss hauling around a bag full of fragile, expensive tapes and batteries and having to listen to the same tapes over and over again. The age of cheap solid state storage and MP3s couldn't arrive fast enough for me.
And having a Gameboy or other portable game device was also really common, even super basic Game & Watch style LCD games that played only one game.
On a somewhat related tangent, one of the malls I used to hang out in as an 80s and 90s teen is now so derelict that someone started planting corn and vegetables and farming in all of the parking lot islands, and it's slated to be demolished for much needed housing. So that's nice and kind of solarpunk.
posted by loquacious at 11:24 AM on July 8, 2023 [41 favorites]
Always tried to have option of *something* interesting to read when necessary. Agree with earlier posters that the analog era often made this more challenging then today.
1970s: School, TV, video games, paper books, teletext, comics, fútbol, birthday parties.
1980s: School, TV, music/walkman, video games, paper books, teletext, fútbol, comics. Going to PC labs to read and post online.
1990s: School, work, raves, loading little ebook files (and usenet thread dumps!) onto Palm PDAs. Easier to read in close quarters on mass transit, the loo, etc. And, finally, a modem and then DSL!
2000s: Digital audio players (Rockbox, FTW!) and playlist noodling. Replaced the PDA with a Windows phone, then finally an Android phone. Upgraded DSL to cable. VPN to home servers meant no more deficiencies in ebooks or streaming media when out of the house. There was also the Return of School.
posted by meehawl at 11:39 AM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
1970s: School, TV, video games, paper books, teletext, comics, fútbol, birthday parties.
1980s: School, TV, music/walkman, video games, paper books, teletext, fútbol, comics. Going to PC labs to read and post online.
1990s: School, work, raves, loading little ebook files (and usenet thread dumps!) onto Palm PDAs. Easier to read in close quarters on mass transit, the loo, etc. And, finally, a modem and then DSL!
2000s: Digital audio players (Rockbox, FTW!) and playlist noodling. Replaced the PDA with a Windows phone, then finally an Android phone. Upgraded DSL to cable. VPN to home servers meant no more deficiencies in ebooks or streaming media when out of the house. There was also the Return of School.
posted by meehawl at 11:39 AM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
What I often try to explain to my kids is how we figured out how to meet up. My brother and I were allowed to go out together very early in our teens, because out mother thought we would protect each other. I don't remember how, and I know I never wore a watch, but we always managed to return together, in spite of often having gone to different parties or bars the moment we walked out the front door. It can't have been land-line phones, because those would have alerted parents. We did have overlapping friend-groups, so that might have been a thing.
Until was 17, I was a competitive horse rider, and I biked out to the stables, 14 km each way. I would often get up at 5 or 6 AM weekend mornings and get home at 4 PM for tea. After that, there would be homework. No time for TV or anything. When I grew out of my class and couldn't afford a new horse, I still rode bikes and horses in the mornings, adding to my other activities.
Generally, I was less bored then. I won't say I was never bored, but I don't remember being bored. I feel I was always busy. Reading was a big thing, and studying, but also un-competitive sports like meeting up for badminton after school, and random cycling about and doing music and also basic socializing. Not just parties but also just hanging about drinking tea and talking about important stuff in someones room. We would absolutely play cards and boardgames and when we got old enough, darts and pool in bars. And petanque/boules during summer. Speaking of seasons, during winter there was ice-skating and during summer swimming. Oh, and organizing parties and stuff. I mean, we were busy.
When I was 17-18, I was an activist, squatting in various abandoned buildings and trying to repair them, cook communal dinners and rise awareness. I had a job to pay for my living, and I had friends. All day gone. Then I got into architecture school which is to this day a very time consuming study, and still had to work on the side and sometimes see friends, ride my bike and pony, and organize parties. I wouldn't have had time for the internet, and to be honest, I see a lot of students today who don't either.
posted by mumimor at 11:45 AM on July 8, 2023 [8 favorites]
Until was 17, I was a competitive horse rider, and I biked out to the stables, 14 km each way. I would often get up at 5 or 6 AM weekend mornings and get home at 4 PM for tea. After that, there would be homework. No time for TV or anything. When I grew out of my class and couldn't afford a new horse, I still rode bikes and horses in the mornings, adding to my other activities.
Generally, I was less bored then. I won't say I was never bored, but I don't remember being bored. I feel I was always busy. Reading was a big thing, and studying, but also un-competitive sports like meeting up for badminton after school, and random cycling about and doing music and also basic socializing. Not just parties but also just hanging about drinking tea and talking about important stuff in someones room. We would absolutely play cards and boardgames and when we got old enough, darts and pool in bars. And petanque/boules during summer. Speaking of seasons, during winter there was ice-skating and during summer swimming. Oh, and organizing parties and stuff. I mean, we were busy.
When I was 17-18, I was an activist, squatting in various abandoned buildings and trying to repair them, cook communal dinners and rise awareness. I had a job to pay for my living, and I had friends. All day gone. Then I got into architecture school which is to this day a very time consuming study, and still had to work on the side and sometimes see friends, ride my bike and pony, and organize parties. I wouldn't have had time for the internet, and to be honest, I see a lot of students today who don't either.
posted by mumimor at 11:45 AM on July 8, 2023 [8 favorites]
I cannot imagine being a passenger in a car, bus or train and wanting to look at a screen instead of what's around me. Maybe in a waiting room for an appointment or for a companion to come back out, but even then I’ve never done it.
I’m really not capable of being bored, either. In grade school I didn’t learn to read, write, or count until third grade, mid third grade for writing, and later than that for counting, and though school was a prison for me and I longed to escape, I wasn’t bored. I didn’t pay that much attention to the incomprehensible stuff the teacher and other kids were doing, but if I couldn’t look out the window, I would stare at a blank wall and have an intense and vivid daydream, though I had to be careful not to get up out of the chair and start acting things out. I remember being very embarrassed in my first experience of organized baseball in the second grade, out in right field during a game under the lights with nothing coming in my direction for a couple of innings, when suddenly I heard the crack of the bat and I had to run to catch the ball. But it wasn’t real and I knew that at some level, but I couldn’t help myself, and I spent the rest of that inning running back and forth catching imaginary fly balls and throwing them back in. When the inning was over and my side was coming up to bat, the coach ran out to meet me as I came to our sideline and angrily and loudly demanded 'what the hell were you doing out there?' I didn’t know how to explain myself, so I said "playing baseball", which at least wiped the anger off his face.
And I have made people on the bus uncomfortable and angry from time to time with my somewhat flashing gaze, leading to a few angry 'what the hell do you think you’re looking at?' types of reaction, to which I wish I could have come up with a better and more conciliatory response than 'whatever I feel like looking at'.
posted by jamjam at 11:47 AM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
I’m really not capable of being bored, either. In grade school I didn’t learn to read, write, or count until third grade, mid third grade for writing, and later than that for counting, and though school was a prison for me and I longed to escape, I wasn’t bored. I didn’t pay that much attention to the incomprehensible stuff the teacher and other kids were doing, but if I couldn’t look out the window, I would stare at a blank wall and have an intense and vivid daydream, though I had to be careful not to get up out of the chair and start acting things out. I remember being very embarrassed in my first experience of organized baseball in the second grade, out in right field during a game under the lights with nothing coming in my direction for a couple of innings, when suddenly I heard the crack of the bat and I had to run to catch the ball. But it wasn’t real and I knew that at some level, but I couldn’t help myself, and I spent the rest of that inning running back and forth catching imaginary fly balls and throwing them back in. When the inning was over and my side was coming up to bat, the coach ran out to meet me as I came to our sideline and angrily and loudly demanded 'what the hell were you doing out there?' I didn’t know how to explain myself, so I said "playing baseball", which at least wiped the anger off his face.
And I have made people on the bus uncomfortable and angry from time to time with my somewhat flashing gaze, leading to a few angry 'what the hell do you think you’re looking at?' types of reaction, to which I wish I could have come up with a better and more conciliatory response than 'whatever I feel like looking at'.
posted by jamjam at 11:47 AM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
I feel like Team Always-Carried-A-Book is going to be over-represented on Metafilter.
I've never been alone with my thoughts until now when I am halfheartedly attempting it as part of The Artist's Way.
Back when I was young and the internet was new, I read a review by an audio engineer praising the Sony MDR-7506. I saved my allowance, bought a pair, and wore them for over 15 years. They were either on my head or tied to my messenger bag. I also carried a book, a backup book, a notebook and pen, and a plastic water bottle decorated with sharpies and stickers because plastic wasn't bad yet. Did I always remember my wallet and keys? Oh, I don't know, maybe, maybe not.
Whenever I get too frustrated with the way The Youth credulously swallow everything on TikTok, I remember that I once made an expensive purchase based on the ramblings of someone who was probably only an audio engineer in his head. Good headphones though.
posted by betweenthebars at 11:52 AM on July 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
I've never been alone with my thoughts until now when I am halfheartedly attempting it as part of The Artist's Way.
Back when I was young and the internet was new, I read a review by an audio engineer praising the Sony MDR-7506. I saved my allowance, bought a pair, and wore them for over 15 years. They were either on my head or tied to my messenger bag. I also carried a book, a backup book, a notebook and pen, and a plastic water bottle decorated with sharpies and stickers because plastic wasn't bad yet. Did I always remember my wallet and keys? Oh, I don't know, maybe, maybe not.
Whenever I get too frustrated with the way The Youth credulously swallow everything on TikTok, I remember that I once made an expensive purchase based on the ramblings of someone who was probably only an audio engineer in his head. Good headphones though.
posted by betweenthebars at 11:52 AM on July 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
I was born in 1982, and stubbornly refused to get a mobile phone at all till I was 19, because I didn't want my mother to be able to track me down whenever she wanted to. I was similarly luddite about smartphones, I've only had one for about five years.
So what have I been doing? Well, I have a million hobbies, many of them textile-related; I draw, paint - in fact do any art-based thing that seems like a good idea at the time; I write, I read both on and off-line, I play TTRPG, I used to LARP and make cosplay and stage wardrobe and props. I make jewellery sometimes, I used to own two dollhouses and spent a lot of time making things for it, now I collect fashion dolls and make a lot of clothes for them.
I have a ton of vintage crafts books and magazines and they're still good, and I'm learning Korean and German - on my laptop, not my smartphone. I'm also starting to learn Korean cooking, I have a hobby WIP list and book list as long as your arm, so honestly, who needs a smartphone to have fun?
Oh, yeah, and I have a Switch...
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 11:55 AM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
So what have I been doing? Well, I have a million hobbies, many of them textile-related; I draw, paint - in fact do any art-based thing that seems like a good idea at the time; I write, I read both on and off-line, I play TTRPG, I used to LARP and make cosplay and stage wardrobe and props. I make jewellery sometimes, I used to own two dollhouses and spent a lot of time making things for it, now I collect fashion dolls and make a lot of clothes for them.
I have a ton of vintage crafts books and magazines and they're still good, and I'm learning Korean and German - on my laptop, not my smartphone. I'm also starting to learn Korean cooking, I have a hobby WIP list and book list as long as your arm, so honestly, who needs a smartphone to have fun?
Oh, yeah, and I have a Switch...
posted by HypotheticalWoman at 11:55 AM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
the problem is ... that some people look at their phones constantly, even when they're out with friends or on a date. Or when they might otherwise be engaged in some meaningful hobby.
True, those goddam TikTok/Douyin and WeChat Channel algorithms are like heroin, transforming their users into zombies, may as well be nodding off.
posted by Rash at 12:06 PM on July 8, 2023
True, those goddam TikTok/Douyin and WeChat Channel algorithms are like heroin, transforming their users into zombies, may as well be nodding off.
posted by Rash at 12:06 PM on July 8, 2023
I'm an old. Got a smart phone to call out if I need to while out and about but I don't take calls on it. The landline at home is for that.
Yeah, I'd keep a book around for reading but since my 20's if it's a fairly short wait I just turn off my head for a while with Meditation. I realized fairly early I can't get bored without thoughts. Turn those off, problem solved!
And being able to turn off my head comes in handy in SO many places nowadays.
posted by aleph at 12:11 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
Yeah, I'd keep a book around for reading but since my 20's if it's a fairly short wait I just turn off my head for a while with Meditation. I realized fairly early I can't get bored without thoughts. Turn those off, problem solved!
And being able to turn off my head comes in handy in SO many places nowadays.
posted by aleph at 12:11 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
What do I do when I am highway driving, a kid is trying to sleep and doesn't like noise.
Highway driving doesn't require full attention: automated cycling of risk sources, control of steering, etc, and only when something is alarming does it need full attention.
I think. Math, stories, plans, etc.
posted by NotAYakk at 12:18 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Highway driving doesn't require full attention: automated cycling of risk sources, control of steering, etc, and only when something is alarming does it need full attention.
I think. Math, stories, plans, etc.
posted by NotAYakk at 12:18 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Most of the time I'm not really doing anything on my phone, either. I pull it out and navigate between a few tabs on the browser or check my email, but I'm not actually doing those things, they are just a habit. It's an automatic gesture that is more of a coping or masking mechanism than it is entertainment. For the most part, I use my phone as a way to avoid staring at other people.
posted by a dangerous ruin at 12:21 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by a dangerous ruin at 12:21 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Mod note: Comment removed. Please read the article before commenting, thanks.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 12:27 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 12:27 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
I talked on the phone with friends, read books, wrote things, cooked more, made collages, wrote letters to friends (not even faraway friends, just any random friends as a fun surprise), and played around with candle wax. I always had a candle going and would poke around in the wax as if it were a kind of modelling clay. I miss those days.
posted by nouvelle-personne at 12:28 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by nouvelle-personne at 12:28 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
Oh yes, letter writing, I forgot that. A huge part of my life before the internet.
posted by mumimor at 12:30 PM on July 8, 2023 [8 favorites]
posted by mumimor at 12:30 PM on July 8, 2023 [8 favorites]
I feel like Team Always-Carried-A-Book is going to be over-represented on Metafilter.
I’ve forever been “team always reading something” but also “team not carrying stuff around” so I definitely spent more time observing my surroundings or lost in thought before I had a smartphone. I also knew that once I did have one (which I didn’t until 2015 or so) I’d always be reading stuff online, and I am. So there’s just not a lot of mystery there.
posted by atoxyl at 12:33 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
I’ve forever been “team always reading something” but also “team not carrying stuff around” so I definitely spent more time observing my surroundings or lost in thought before I had a smartphone. I also knew that once I did have one (which I didn’t until 2015 or so) I’d always be reading stuff online, and I am. So there’s just not a lot of mystery there.
posted by atoxyl at 12:33 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Like my friend that got dropped off near a rave in a warehouse district in LA in his pajamas and slippers (Why pajamas? Did you miss the part about 90s rave?) and he didn't have change for payphones or something, only to find out the party had been busted and everyone was gone and out of reach, so he ended up walking all the way to Hollywood and wandering around till dawn through some legitimately rough neighborhoods during the height of the LAPD Rampart Scandal and crack epidemic until his mom rescued him. (Or something along these lines.)
I would watch the hell out of this movie; it sounds like Falling Down with a more sympathetic protagonist and a happy ending.
I still have a vivid memory of going to meet friends at our usual bar on our usual night. For whatever reason, conversation lagged and everyone was quiet. So I pulled out my Palm and started reading some articles I downloaded via AvantGo. After a few minutes, I looked up. Everyone at the table was a bit horrified. My best friend gently took my Palm from my hands and pushed it into my pocket.
I was also an early adopter, and after downloading a Tetris clone to my Palm, eventually deleted it because I was compulsively playing it so much that you could tell which parts of the screen had the on-screen controls.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:35 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
I would watch the hell out of this movie; it sounds like Falling Down with a more sympathetic protagonist and a happy ending.
I still have a vivid memory of going to meet friends at our usual bar on our usual night. For whatever reason, conversation lagged and everyone was quiet. So I pulled out my Palm and started reading some articles I downloaded via AvantGo. After a few minutes, I looked up. Everyone at the table was a bit horrified. My best friend gently took my Palm from my hands and pushed it into my pocket.
I was also an early adopter, and after downloading a Tetris clone to my Palm, eventually deleted it because I was compulsively playing it so much that you could tell which parts of the screen had the on-screen controls.
posted by Halloween Jack at 12:35 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
I cannot overemphasize how little there is to do now that we all have smartphones.
posted by TangoCharlie at 12:37 PM on July 8, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by TangoCharlie at 12:37 PM on July 8, 2023 [16 favorites]
I remember that I once made an expensive purchase based on the ramblings of someone who was probably only an audio engineer in his head. Good headphones though.
Those have for sure been in studios for ages. Whatever his formal credentials, it’s a reasonable “can’t go wrong” recommendation.
posted by atoxyl at 12:43 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Those have for sure been in studios for ages. Whatever his formal credentials, it’s a reasonable “can’t go wrong” recommendation.
posted by atoxyl at 12:43 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Is that article satire, or does the author just not know anyone from the 20th century? I've only had a smartphone for a year now, and my life has not been full of constant, endless boredom.
posted by Miss Cellania at 12:54 PM on July 8, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by Miss Cellania at 12:54 PM on July 8, 2023 [10 favorites]
One thing that was great in the old times was that one could disappear a bit.
An anecdote: My ex was a mean piece of manipulating shit. But back then we were married and I was always trying to make lemonade out of his shit. So once, he was given a very prestigious show and I said I would arrange an after-party, since that is what one does in that situation. He refused everything. So the day arrives and obviously he is very happy with everything and I decide to improvise an afterparty which is much harder and more expensive and also at a less interesting venue. And we go there and he is all into himself and everyone is having a ball, and I walked out. I took a six hour walk into the night and it was good all the way. Obviously people were somewhat worried, but according to my spies, they didn't suffer, since it was absolutely normal not to know where someone was and not be able to reach them.
(I should have left him then and there, but that is not the point).
Also, it was normal when you went on interrail, as most European kids did when I was young, your parents would only get one or two postcards during the month you were away. Now we expect daily updates.
posted by mumimor at 12:59 PM on July 8, 2023 [10 favorites]
An anecdote: My ex was a mean piece of manipulating shit. But back then we were married and I was always trying to make lemonade out of his shit. So once, he was given a very prestigious show and I said I would arrange an after-party, since that is what one does in that situation. He refused everything. So the day arrives and obviously he is very happy with everything and I decide to improvise an afterparty which is much harder and more expensive and also at a less interesting venue. And we go there and he is all into himself and everyone is having a ball, and I walked out. I took a six hour walk into the night and it was good all the way. Obviously people were somewhat worried, but according to my spies, they didn't suffer, since it was absolutely normal not to know where someone was and not be able to reach them.
(I should have left him then and there, but that is not the point).
Also, it was normal when you went on interrail, as most European kids did when I was young, your parents would only get one or two postcards during the month you were away. Now we expect daily updates.
posted by mumimor at 12:59 PM on July 8, 2023 [10 favorites]
I feel like Team Always-Carried-A-Book is going to be over-represented on Metafilter.
I resemble that remark. I had big purses and carried two books in case I finished one. Also a journal to write in. Also a swiss army knife because we weren't all being suspected future assaulters at that time (also...80s/90s and female.)
What I often try to explain to my kids is how we figured out how to meet up.
There are still certain spots in subway stations and certain spots in downtown Toronto that I think of as The Meeting Places because we met up there, within a 15 minute tolerance, and then we had the next meeting place and the next meeting place. So if you didn't arrive on time, the next place was outside La Press, and the next place was outside the University theatre...etc. It took a lot longer, but we also didn't stop for Insta shots, so.
posted by warriorqueen at 1:13 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
I resemble that remark. I had big purses and carried two books in case I finished one. Also a journal to write in. Also a swiss army knife because we weren't all being suspected future assaulters at that time (also...80s/90s and female.)
What I often try to explain to my kids is how we figured out how to meet up.
There are still certain spots in subway stations and certain spots in downtown Toronto that I think of as The Meeting Places because we met up there, within a 15 minute tolerance, and then we had the next meeting place and the next meeting place. So if you didn't arrive on time, the next place was outside La Press, and the next place was outside the University theatre...etc. It took a lot longer, but we also didn't stop for Insta shots, so.
posted by warriorqueen at 1:13 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
I watched SO much crappy TV as a kid, oh wow. We didn't have cable, so a lot of times it was "It's on; I'll watch it." (I had a TV in my room.)
posted by trillian at 1:16 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by trillian at 1:16 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
I went to get my haircut today, and realize there are no magazines laying around the waiting area as it had been in years and decades past. I don't think I would ever have subscribed to people magazine, but it was nice picking one up in a haircut place or other waiting room and catching up on the months old gossip.
posted by jazon at 1:22 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by jazon at 1:22 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
I feel like Team Always-Carried-A-Book is going to be over-represented on Metafilter.
Perhaps, but if you'll permit me to briefly reminisce about the 90s....
My parents and their social circle were not nerdy or particularly intellectual - not to suggest there is anything wrong with that, I just point it out to say, they were pretty different than the average Metafilter user.
And yet as a kid growing up mostly in the 90s, they were frequently reading. At the beach. At whatever swimming hole they had taken us kids. At the doctor's office. Books on their nightstands. Book recommendations were often shared when they got together. These were generally at best mid-brow books, but very often low-brow. I distinctly remember when around half of them were hooked on Sue Grafton (titillating murder mysteries). I'm not sure how you'd measure this, but I imagine a lot of low-brow novels have been replaced by reading social media, or other cell phone provided diversions.
posted by coffeecat at 1:23 PM on July 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
Perhaps, but if you'll permit me to briefly reminisce about the 90s....
My parents and their social circle were not nerdy or particularly intellectual - not to suggest there is anything wrong with that, I just point it out to say, they were pretty different than the average Metafilter user.
And yet as a kid growing up mostly in the 90s, they were frequently reading. At the beach. At whatever swimming hole they had taken us kids. At the doctor's office. Books on their nightstands. Book recommendations were often shared when they got together. These were generally at best mid-brow books, but very often low-brow. I distinctly remember when around half of them were hooked on Sue Grafton (titillating murder mysteries). I'm not sure how you'd measure this, but I imagine a lot of low-brow novels have been replaced by reading social media, or other cell phone provided diversions.
posted by coffeecat at 1:23 PM on July 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
For those who are not familiar with Ian, yes, that is satire.
posted by perhapses at 1:30 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by perhapses at 1:30 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
I don't have a smartphone and tend to carry a book or a notebook around with me when I leave the house. I highly recommend hitching on to my wagon here. You can stand up real tall and tower over all those people staring down at their palms.
posted by tmt at 1:35 PM on July 8, 2023
posted by tmt at 1:35 PM on July 8, 2023
I went to get my haircut today, and realize there are no magazines laying around the waiting area as it had been in years and decades past. I don't think I would ever have subscribed to people magazine, but it was nice picking one up in a haircut place or other waiting room and catching up on the months old gossip.
It's kind of annoying that those never came back to waiting rooms post-COVID (make that "post"), as touching communal magazines is such an unlikely way to be infected...
posted by trillian at 1:38 PM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
It's kind of annoying that those never came back to waiting rooms post-COVID (make that "post"), as touching communal magazines is such an unlikely way to be infected...
posted by trillian at 1:38 PM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
I don't have a smartphone and tend to carry a book or a notebook around with me when I leave the house.
I have both, and it's one object!
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:43 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
I have both, and it's one object!
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:43 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
I had massive amounts of sex. The sex market these days is a bust.
posted by lextex at 1:44 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by lextex at 1:44 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Hell, I'm a bust these days anyway...
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:03 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:03 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
For those who are not familiar with Ian, yes, that is satire.
Is it satire? Or is it sarcasm? Or trolling?
I enjoyed the article because (like so many here, it seems) it brought back plenty of sense-memories (e.g. printing out MapQuest directions).
The premise feels disingenuous, but I enjoyed the ride. Maybe this is “benign trolling.”
posted by TangoCharlie at 2:08 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Is it satire? Or is it sarcasm? Or trolling?
I enjoyed the article because (like so many here, it seems) it brought back plenty of sense-memories (e.g. printing out MapQuest directions).
The premise feels disingenuous, but I enjoyed the ride. Maybe this is “benign trolling.”
posted by TangoCharlie at 2:08 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
I talked to people, even if I didn’t know them. Today, most who are much younger than I am are freaked out and terrified by making conversation with a random stranger.
posted by Ideefixe at 2:11 PM on July 8, 2023
posted by Ideefixe at 2:11 PM on July 8, 2023
Before smartphones, I read magazines and technical books while commuting. Fiction is sacred; I only read fiction when the surroundings are positive.
I also like scenery, and people-watching. Now that I'm old, I find it easier to talk to strangers, too.
posted by Artful Codger at 2:15 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
I also like scenery, and people-watching. Now that I'm old, I find it easier to talk to strangers, too.
posted by Artful Codger at 2:15 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
What I often try to explain to my kids is how we figured out how to meet up.
The pig, the ferry terminal, the ’xit…
posted by clew at 2:28 PM on July 8, 2023
The pig, the ferry terminal, the ’xit…
posted by clew at 2:28 PM on July 8, 2023
I guess I'm an extreme outlier, but I don't even take my phone most places unless I know I will have navigational needs. And having my phone does not mean I necessarily look at it. I guess I just don't use my phone very much in general. I prefer reading articles on full screens, I'm not on social media, and there aren't really, like...apps I enjoy??
I do a lot of gazing or thinking or observing. I also talk randomly to people sometimes. I see on preview that some consider this difficult now, and I admit that I sort of automatically will not talk to strangers who are my age, because they tend to be so plainly unreceptive, with pretty limited social skills (I'm in my 20s). Older people, though, tend to be delighted by spontaneous conversation.
Sometimes I have a book, but I can't often use it. There's something wrong with my brain or whatever, and I can't read/write if there is any noise or talking in the background. I also can't read in cars due to motion sickness. Perhaps these factors forced me to learn to tolerate a lack of stimulation early on, I don't know.
BTW it's also not just a fake NYT Style Section trend that some youngsters are re-embracing flip phones, for a variety of reasons. I know a couple people who did this, and they seem happy with their choice.
posted by desert outpost at 2:31 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
I do a lot of gazing or thinking or observing. I also talk randomly to people sometimes. I see on preview that some consider this difficult now, and I admit that I sort of automatically will not talk to strangers who are my age, because they tend to be so plainly unreceptive, with pretty limited social skills (I'm in my 20s). Older people, though, tend to be delighted by spontaneous conversation.
Sometimes I have a book, but I can't often use it. There's something wrong with my brain or whatever, and I can't read/write if there is any noise or talking in the background. I also can't read in cars due to motion sickness. Perhaps these factors forced me to learn to tolerate a lack of stimulation early on, I don't know.
BTW it's also not just a fake NYT Style Section trend that some youngsters are re-embracing flip phones, for a variety of reasons. I know a couple people who did this, and they seem happy with their choice.
posted by desert outpost at 2:31 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Was shocked how deep in the comments before I saw a mention of people watching which was - and often still is - default #1 for me, after which was always the newspaper, free city paper or long-form magazine I'd carry. Nat Geo, Atlantic, Smithsonian, Outside, even Rolling Stone way back when it didn't suck. Hell, the only way I'd get through a Sunday Times was to pack a couple sections or the book review for mid-week lunch or wait times. And yeah, talking with strangers was something people actually did a lot before smartphones.
posted by thecincinnatikid at 2:33 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by thecincinnatikid at 2:33 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
Mike Teevee : Look at me, I'm gonna be be the first person in the world to be sent by television!
Mrs. Teevee : Mike, get away from that thing!
Willy Wonka : [unenthusiastically] Stop. Don't. Come back.
Mike Teevee : Lights, camera, *action*
posted by clavdivs at 2:48 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Mrs. Teevee : Mike, get away from that thing!
Willy Wonka : [unenthusiastically] Stop. Don't. Come back.
Mike Teevee : Lights, camera, *action*
posted by clavdivs at 2:48 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Magazines in public places were taken away during covid.
As was said above, carried at least one book around at all times, now book + notebook + internet are all on one thing.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:50 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
As was said above, carried at least one book around at all times, now book + notebook + internet are all on one thing.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:50 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
The pre-smart-phone train commute was reading the newspaper. If you were a money maker in NYC, you read the Wall Street Journal. In London, the FT. By the time you get to the desk you had Gotten The Message about what had happened yesterday and what might happen today. If the smartphone has cost us one thing, it's that you can't count on people to know that anymore.
posted by MattD at 2:50 PM on July 8, 2023
posted by MattD at 2:50 PM on July 8, 2023
Miss Cellania: Is that article satire, or does the author just not know anyone from the 20th century? I've only had a smartphone for a year now, and my life has not been full of constant, endless boredom.
If you can remember before smartphones, you weren't there.
posted by k3ninho at 2:55 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
If you can remember before smartphones, you weren't there.
posted by k3ninho at 2:55 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
yes, that is satire
Perhaps, if satire means making obtusely ignorant statements in hope of provoking a reaction, but that sounds a lot like trolling, to me.
posted by Rash at 2:58 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Perhaps, if satire means making obtusely ignorant statements in hope of provoking a reaction, but that sounds a lot like trolling, to me.
posted by Rash at 2:58 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Thunderball Rocky Road coleco handheld was really gold pinball parlors mountain bikes ride the trail take a hike downtown computer lab pay off your pinball tab roller skates Norman Bates interest rates belgians in the E.U.
we didn't start your boredom
it was always there like something to wear
not responsible for your boredom
that's what board games are for
pick up a stick and yell fore
Ralph Nader t-shirts
pet rock parties
fondue's hearty
mail order novelties
Pokemon Chaka Khan
wrath from the Watergate.
oh
posted by clavdivs at 3:00 PM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
we didn't start your boredom
it was always there like something to wear
not responsible for your boredom
that's what board games are for
pick up a stick and yell fore
Ralph Nader t-shirts
pet rock parties
fondue's hearty
mail order novelties
Pokemon Chaka Khan
wrath from the Watergate.
oh
posted by clavdivs at 3:00 PM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
Personally, I just remember a number of experiences I used to dread because I knew I would be bored out of my skull. Things like waiting in a doctor’s office, waiting to board a plane, taking a long car or train ride, doing a mindless household chore.
Were you unaware that there were books, magazines and radio stations available?
posted by Paul Slade at 3:03 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Were you unaware that there were books, magazines and radio stations available?
posted by Paul Slade at 3:03 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
We ate sand.
posted by swift at 3:08 PM on July 8, 2023 [10 favorites]
posted by swift at 3:08 PM on July 8, 2023 [10 favorites]
Were you unaware that there were books, magazines and radio stations available
Yes. Thanks for the tip.
posted by The Gooch at 3:25 PM on July 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
Yes. Thanks for the tip.
posted by The Gooch at 3:25 PM on July 8, 2023 [6 favorites]
For me and my mate of many years there was a lot more reading, good conversation and listening to music.
posted by DJZouke at 3:47 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by DJZouke at 3:47 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
printing out MapQuest directions
Heh, n00b...I still carry a road atlas in my car!
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:57 PM on July 8, 2023 [8 favorites]
Heh, n00b...I still carry a road atlas in my car!
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:57 PM on July 8, 2023 [8 favorites]
If you were by yourself sure, newspapers and occasionally books, but most of the time people just stared blankly. Really. Or smoked. That was bigger in the old days and a way to waste 10 empty minutes. And for group stuff people spent a lot of time coordinating and a lot of time being pissed at their flaky friends.
posted by The_Vegetables at 4:04 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by The_Vegetables at 4:04 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Older people, though, tend to be delighted by spontaneous conversation.
It's because our kids never call, they never write text... *sigh*
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:10 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
It's because our kids never call, they never
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:10 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Were you unaware that there were books, magazines and radio stations available?
I was a kid without a purse during most of that time, so the magazines offered were roundly unappetizing. I do remember my college's psych waiting room had Vogues, though and I'd check those out.
posted by Selena777 at 4:14 PM on July 8, 2023
I was a kid without a purse during most of that time, so the magazines offered were roundly unappetizing. I do remember my college's psych waiting room had Vogues, though and I'd check those out.
posted by Selena777 at 4:14 PM on July 8, 2023
I love maps, and still have tons of them.
Before my dad died, we went on a holiday with several of his friends, who all had gps. But dad was a luddite when it came to maps, and also he was a general who loved having his daughter play the reconnaissance officer in his car. He sent me maps from when I was 8 and on. And initially a compass, but when that failed for hilarious reasons, instructions for how to navigate by the hours, sun and stars.
We triumphed every day, because GPS is full of false assumptions to this day, but even more so back then. We had a blast.
To this day, I am spatial oriented. 90% of the time I can tell you where North is, but not at all always where left is. (The last ten percent is when I am drunk at midnight. Sorry dad).
posted by mumimor at 4:16 PM on July 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
Before my dad died, we went on a holiday with several of his friends, who all had gps. But dad was a luddite when it came to maps, and also he was a general who loved having his daughter play the reconnaissance officer in his car. He sent me maps from when I was 8 and on. And initially a compass, but when that failed for hilarious reasons, instructions for how to navigate by the hours, sun and stars.
We triumphed every day, because GPS is full of false assumptions to this day, but even more so back then. We had a blast.
To this day, I am spatial oriented. 90% of the time I can tell you where North is, but not at all always where left is. (The last ten percent is when I am drunk at midnight. Sorry dad).
posted by mumimor at 4:16 PM on July 8, 2023 [7 favorites]
Bored? Nothing like our parents forcing us to go to mass. I almost started chewing on the hymnals. I don't think it was quite character-building.
the typical paperback used to fit quite easily in a pants or jacket pocket
In Paul Fussell's 'Wartime', he talks about how British army fatigues had special "Penguin Pockets" for paperbacks, and how great they were.
So many hours travelling various places and mindlessly staring out windows watching the landscape roll by. I'll take the window seat, if my knees fit.
I currently have a dumb smartphone but I'm gonna upgrade and get something fancier someday, and fiddle with apps, I guess, then.
posted by ovvl at 4:23 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
the typical paperback used to fit quite easily in a pants or jacket pocket
In Paul Fussell's 'Wartime', he talks about how British army fatigues had special "Penguin Pockets" for paperbacks, and how great they were.
So many hours travelling various places and mindlessly staring out windows watching the landscape roll by. I'll take the window seat, if my knees fit.
I currently have a dumb smartphone but I'm gonna upgrade and get something fancier someday, and fiddle with apps, I guess, then.
posted by ovvl at 4:23 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
The article photo! airport lounge, time of day, common departure point & destination, attire, stance... - there must be someone in the room with common interests as it's a sales-rich environment, if not I'll read a book.
Anyway always had a book on me and still do - I like to 'be' where I am (as apposed to article's - live “alone together.”) and phones/screens remove me (especially when I want to absorb a place either just for fun [pers. blog], or I'm trying to understand a new area near a job).
Built models when I was a kid, and spent an enormous amount of time shooting, and just out in the woods - and still read a lot.
Smartphones are just a tool but don't give much pleasure. I enjoy taking photos with it, record conversations, and when I traverse sites - hands-free & paper-free is great for site survey. Don't use apps, have never played games. Only use to txt for business as not really a friends type of person, and never have been.
posted by unearthed at 4:24 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Anyway always had a book on me and still do - I like to 'be' where I am (as apposed to article's - live “alone together.”) and phones/screens remove me (especially when I want to absorb a place either just for fun [pers. blog], or I'm trying to understand a new area near a job).
Built models when I was a kid, and spent an enormous amount of time shooting, and just out in the woods - and still read a lot.
Smartphones are just a tool but don't give much pleasure. I enjoy taking photos with it, record conversations, and when I traverse sites - hands-free & paper-free is great for site survey. Don't use apps, have never played games. Only use to txt for business as not really a friends type of person, and never have been.
posted by unearthed at 4:24 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Literally, what did we do? I cannot recall.
If you're me and you're visiting your girlfriend in Plymouth from Amsterdam, using the truly dreadful Eurolines bus service because you're broke, you read War and Peace at five AM in the London Victoria Bus Station while listening to KMFDM on your CD player, waiting for the dismal coffee shop to open at six.
posted by MartinWisse at 4:26 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
If you're me and you're visiting your girlfriend in Plymouth from Amsterdam, using the truly dreadful Eurolines bus service because you're broke, you read War and Peace at five AM in the London Victoria Bus Station while listening to KMFDM on your CD player, waiting for the dismal coffee shop to open at six.
posted by MartinWisse at 4:26 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
Used to read everywhere. I mastered the art of reading and walking. Wherever I had to go or my parents would drag me. Always carried at least one paperback book and before that usually had some comic books.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:34 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:34 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Oh! Oh! I also used to daydream.
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:39 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 4:39 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
Personally, I just remember a number of experiences I used to dread because I knew I would be bored out of my skull. Things like waiting in a doctor’s office, waiting to board a plane, taking a long car or train ride, doing a mindless household chore.
Am I the only one who doesn’t feel this way? I honestly don’t know what the fuck people are constantly looking at on their phones. Is it social media?
Like, sure, I’ll look at my phone in these situations, but after a few minutes I’m tapped out. I still carry a book around, or a magazine. I don’t know.
posted by rhymedirective at 4:42 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Am I the only one who doesn’t feel this way? I honestly don’t know what the fuck people are constantly looking at on their phones. Is it social media?
Like, sure, I’ll look at my phone in these situations, but after a few minutes I’m tapped out. I still carry a book around, or a magazine. I don’t know.
posted by rhymedirective at 4:42 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
I honestly don’t know what the fuck people are constantly looking at on their phones. Is it social media?For me, it’s usually MetaFilter.
posted by mbrubeck at 4:44 PM on July 8, 2023 [11 favorites]
I read books, listened to my Walkman (in the 80s and 90s) and talked to strangers., mostly the latter. I made conversation with everyone, everywhere. Almost every single one of the friends I've got from the pre-cell phone days are people I went up to and started a conversation with them (with a few who spoke to me first but that's maybe 3%).
Right before the pandemic, I was in a small upscale grocery store and a little boy was wearing a cape and swim goggles, so I struck up a conversation with him (where he bowled me over talking about physics as his mother slowly edged closer). Eventually, she asked me I taught school (which happens to me often, even though I never have -- I just happily converse with tiny humans), and we ended up chatting for about 15 minutes about how they'd recently moved to the area, how they were going on vacation to Italy (I'd just returned) and so on. When she found out what I do professionally, she asked for a few of my cards to share. A week later, she invited me to lunch with her daughter (the little boy was otherwise engaged) and we had a lovely time.
It wasn't until the lunch and I went home that I realized that that used to happen to me ALL THE TIME. I talked to strangers, they became my friends. A guy I met on a plane in 2010 saved my card and contacted me in 2013 because he was going to be working with a client in my city for a few days and invited me to dinner. Not for a date; nothing untoward was remotely assumed by me or him. And I introduced him to my favorite restaurant and we very occasionally email about travel-related things. Because neither of us were buried in our phones.
I was the last of my friends to get a cell phone, then the last to get a smart phone, and by keeping myself open to the humanity around me, I had lots of human interactions. And, I'll admit, some great daydreams. I don't use my phone when I'm out shopping or at a restaurant/cafe, but everyone else is, and when I'm out for a walk, I'm usually watching TikTok or reading social media posts (longreads are too hard to read while walking), and I rarely daydream anymore.
Something ineffable has been lost to me with these silos. Granted, I'm an extrovert, but the world seems so much colder now. I had a huge inner world for daydreaming when I wasn't talking with others; now I pre-empt my inner thoughts with other people's typed or filmed ones. Between phones and my own masking, I find that both my inner world and my engagement with the world at large is drastically smaller. I still read a lot of books. But when I talk to strangers, there's a wariness, no matter how adorably safe I am. Maybe it's the mask, maybe it's modern ways. (Maybe it's Maybelline.)
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 4:49 PM on July 8, 2023 [14 favorites]
Right before the pandemic, I was in a small upscale grocery store and a little boy was wearing a cape and swim goggles, so I struck up a conversation with him (where he bowled me over talking about physics as his mother slowly edged closer). Eventually, she asked me I taught school (which happens to me often, even though I never have -- I just happily converse with tiny humans), and we ended up chatting for about 15 minutes about how they'd recently moved to the area, how they were going on vacation to Italy (I'd just returned) and so on. When she found out what I do professionally, she asked for a few of my cards to share. A week later, she invited me to lunch with her daughter (the little boy was otherwise engaged) and we had a lovely time.
It wasn't until the lunch and I went home that I realized that that used to happen to me ALL THE TIME. I talked to strangers, they became my friends. A guy I met on a plane in 2010 saved my card and contacted me in 2013 because he was going to be working with a client in my city for a few days and invited me to dinner. Not for a date; nothing untoward was remotely assumed by me or him. And I introduced him to my favorite restaurant and we very occasionally email about travel-related things. Because neither of us were buried in our phones.
I was the last of my friends to get a cell phone, then the last to get a smart phone, and by keeping myself open to the humanity around me, I had lots of human interactions. And, I'll admit, some great daydreams. I don't use my phone when I'm out shopping or at a restaurant/cafe, but everyone else is, and when I'm out for a walk, I'm usually watching TikTok or reading social media posts (longreads are too hard to read while walking), and I rarely daydream anymore.
Something ineffable has been lost to me with these silos. Granted, I'm an extrovert, but the world seems so much colder now. I had a huge inner world for daydreaming when I wasn't talking with others; now I pre-empt my inner thoughts with other people's typed or filmed ones. Between phones and my own masking, I find that both my inner world and my engagement with the world at large is drastically smaller. I still read a lot of books. But when I talk to strangers, there's a wariness, no matter how adorably safe I am. Maybe it's the mask, maybe it's modern ways. (Maybe it's Maybelline.)
posted by The Wrong Kind of Cheese at 4:49 PM on July 8, 2023 [14 favorites]
In my neighborhood, it is still seen as an obligation to chat with everybody. It's not like the community board will get you thrown out of your apartment if you don't, but things will become more difficult. There are tons of exceptions: Mr. x is strange and also a bit of a stalker, but he has never done any harm in 40 years and people need a home even if they have mental health issues. And so on. On the other hand Ms. Y always complained when the youngsters partied. Hasn't she been young herself? We need to let loose in life. Well Ms. Y has moved now. Her ex and daughter seem eager to join the neighborhood.
Now a new young lady, Ms M, has moved in, and has created a safe haven for LGTB+ and a hugely popular bar. We are all invited.
We do have a Facebook thing, but nobody uses it: we just talk about things when we meet, all the time.
posted by mumimor at 5:13 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
Now a new young lady, Ms M, has moved in, and has created a safe haven for LGTB+ and a hugely popular bar. We are all invited.
We do have a Facebook thing, but nobody uses it: we just talk about things when we meet, all the time.
posted by mumimor at 5:13 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
Seinfeld has some pretty good examples of how people managed, or failed, to meet up before smartphones.
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:31 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by tofu_crouton at 5:31 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
I remember appreciating Dr. Bronner’s text-heavy soap bottles for something to read in the shower.
posted by bendy at 5:35 PM on July 8, 2023 [12 favorites]
posted by bendy at 5:35 PM on July 8, 2023 [12 favorites]
Professional offices and barber shops/salons had a plethora of magazines to read. Airports and airplanes had plenty of opportunity for watching people, planes, or the passing scenery if you hadn't brought/bought a book. Any place had music starting in about 2003 when most phones came with an MP3 player, so long as you could bother to buy a memory card of whatever description and load some MP3s on it. Before that, there was always the music in my head. It's probably not exactly the same as the real song I'm trying to remember, but close enough.
I remember being really bored a few times with very long waits when the magazines ran out or on a super busy day at the DMV, where they didn't have such niceties, but on the whole it's not really that hard to find something entertaining about the world around you if you take the time to look and the world in your head horrifies you enough that letting your mind wander isn't an option.
posted by wierdo at 5:38 PM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
I remember being really bored a few times with very long waits when the magazines ran out or on a super busy day at the DMV, where they didn't have such niceties, but on the whole it's not really that hard to find something entertaining about the world around you if you take the time to look and the world in your head horrifies you enough that letting your mind wander isn't an option.
posted by wierdo at 5:38 PM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
One thing I loved back then - and still love, in fact - are those PennyPress puzzle magazines that you can find in supermarkets. I carried one around everywhere before smart phones, as something to do that's more invigorating than just people watching. Then, when I had free time? Dig into a puzzle while blasting Midnight Oil on a portable CD player.
I even buy them now. In fact, as a treat? I will get myself a new puzzle magazine before I go on a trip. If you have a Daiso by you, they have inexpensive Sudoku books of varying difficulty.
posted by spinifex23 at 5:44 PM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
I even buy them now. In fact, as a treat? I will get myself a new puzzle magazine before I go on a trip. If you have a Daiso by you, they have inexpensive Sudoku books of varying difficulty.
posted by spinifex23 at 5:44 PM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
I thought this was satire masquerading as non-satire, knowing nothing about the author.
posted by morspin at 5:46 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by morspin at 5:46 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
My version of this, because I try not to use my iphone for things beyond texting and calling, is how in the world did anyone get anywhere they were trying to go without GPS/google maps? Then I remember AAA Triptics. And you can still request a paper copy :).
posted by bluesky43 at 6:07 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by bluesky43 at 6:07 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
I read books.
In fact my early web browsing also involved a book because dial up was so slow that I'd click a link then read a page or two before the webpage rendered.
I do mostly the same thing these days, except on a phone instead of paper.
posted by sotonohito at 6:15 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
In fact my early web browsing also involved a book because dial up was so slow that I'd click a link then read a page or two before the webpage rendered.
I do mostly the same thing these days, except on a phone instead of paper.
posted by sotonohito at 6:15 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
AAA Triptics
My grandparents swore (and navigated) by those when I was a kid! I was always amazed that they came manually curated with up-to-date stamps of things like construction, points of interest, etc. I thought my grandparents must have known someone pretty important in AAA for them to wangle such customized maps.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:19 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
My grandparents swore (and navigated) by those when I was a kid! I was always amazed that they came manually curated with up-to-date stamps of things like construction, points of interest, etc. I thought my grandparents must have known someone pretty important in AAA for them to wangle such customized maps.
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:19 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Yes it’s satire and it fancies itself as absurdist. “We couldn’t remember what we did, because there was nothing to remember having done. We did nothing, and it was horrible.” That is just silly.
I am, as my kid says, “terminally online” and have a chronic case of gadget love that started when I got my first FM transistor radio (oh my god the excitement). I had a flip phone and a Palm and then the first iPhone.
But I remember vividly the time before we could carry any kind of electronic entertainment with us, and we were busy as hell. Plus there were, as others have mentioned, paperbacks, people watching, and daydreaming.
Also it is remarkable how many people out and about are not looking at their smartphones, and how many random conversations you can still have with strangers in the bus.
posted by Peach at 6:51 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
I am, as my kid says, “terminally online” and have a chronic case of gadget love that started when I got my first FM transistor radio (oh my god the excitement). I had a flip phone and a Palm and then the first iPhone.
But I remember vividly the time before we could carry any kind of electronic entertainment with us, and we were busy as hell. Plus there were, as others have mentioned, paperbacks, people watching, and daydreaming.
Also it is remarkable how many people out and about are not looking at their smartphones, and how many random conversations you can still have with strangers in the bus.
posted by Peach at 6:51 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
In the early years I was an introvert and always had a book. For three years I went to a school where my walk home was: cross the street, walk a mile without turns on this wide concrete sidewalk, turn left, walk 2 blocks home. I did that walk with my nose in a book.
When iPods, iPhones, Sony MiniDisc Players came out and everyone always had a device on them I never did that. You’ll almost never see me wearing headphones or earbuds in public, they just don’t seem safe.
So, when I started being more extroverted I talked to people around me. But phones also provide a good middle-ground for stuff like eating in restaurants, I can introvert and read the news or extrovert and chat.
posted by bendy at 6:54 PM on July 8, 2023
When iPods, iPhones, Sony MiniDisc Players came out and everyone always had a device on them I never did that. You’ll almost never see me wearing headphones or earbuds in public, they just don’t seem safe.
So, when I started being more extroverted I talked to people around me. But phones also provide a good middle-ground for stuff like eating in restaurants, I can introvert and read the news or extrovert and chat.
posted by bendy at 6:54 PM on July 8, 2023
I think part of why this satire works so well is if you asked the average person what they actually looked at when mindlessly scrolling through their phone any given amount of time ago they likely couldn't tell you.
And to be clear I mindless scroll through my phone just as much as anyone else.
posted by firefly5 at 7:18 PM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
And to be clear I mindless scroll through my phone just as much as anyone else.
posted by firefly5 at 7:18 PM on July 8, 2023 [4 favorites]
Cribbage.
I watched the culture of information-sharing (and caring) degrade at my workplace. During breaks or long waits, we used to gather 'round the table, play cards, swap stories and idly problem-solve in that diffuse-mode sort of way. Then in 2008, one of us, and then all of us, got iPhones and spent free time pawing at the iThing that was now more interesting/demanding/attractive than a deck of cards.
posted by FairWitness at 7:26 PM on July 8, 2023
I watched the culture of information-sharing (and caring) degrade at my workplace. During breaks or long waits, we used to gather 'round the table, play cards, swap stories and idly problem-solve in that diffuse-mode sort of way. Then in 2008, one of us, and then all of us, got iPhones and spent free time pawing at the iThing that was now more interesting/demanding/attractive than a deck of cards.
posted by FairWitness at 7:26 PM on July 8, 2023
Regarding getting lost: If you eventually reach your destination, can you really say you were ever lost? Also, road atlases were a thing so if you really did get super turned around on a long journey, you just pulled that out of the glove box and puzzled over the map for a few minutes.
I was always a fan of YOLOing road trips. All you really need to know is that highways x, y, and z go through the city you plan to hit and what general direction to go to get to one of them. Between that and the convenient wayfinding signs dotting every state highway you'll make it eventually If you keep your gas tank pretty full so that you're never in danger of running out.
posted by wierdo at 8:16 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
I was always a fan of YOLOing road trips. All you really need to know is that highways x, y, and z go through the city you plan to hit and what general direction to go to get to one of them. Between that and the convenient wayfinding signs dotting every state highway you'll make it eventually If you keep your gas tank pretty full so that you're never in danger of running out.
posted by wierdo at 8:16 PM on July 8, 2023 [3 favorites]
Even more fun is avoiding Interstate highways and sticking to state roads and U.S. routes - that's when you really want a road map, but it's worth it. There's a lot of amazing places out there that the Interstate highways will never show you.
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:45 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 8:45 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
These days you can people watch from your phone.
posted by Tenuki at 9:13 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Tenuki at 9:13 PM on July 8, 2023 [2 favorites]
I definitely read more "real" (paper) books before I had a smartphone. Generally had at least 2 with me, in case I finished one, or to pick between depending on my mood. Now I mostly do audiobooks, although I keep thinking I'll get back to more of the paper variety.
One habit I've had for at least 25 years, pre and post fancy phone, is my bedtime crossword puzzle. I do the NYT puzzles as part of my evening wind-down routine, both the current one and older ones tracking back. When I started them, I had dial-up internet, had to wait for the puzzle to download so I could print them out. When I finished one, I would check it online for errors, then put it in recycling. I always had a stack of the harder Friday and Saturday puzzles, partly finished, on my clipboard, to continue working on after finishing the easy ones. Now I just do them on my tablet.
posted by dorey_oh at 9:15 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
One habit I've had for at least 25 years, pre and post fancy phone, is my bedtime crossword puzzle. I do the NYT puzzles as part of my evening wind-down routine, both the current one and older ones tracking back. When I started them, I had dial-up internet, had to wait for the puzzle to download so I could print them out. When I finished one, I would check it online for errors, then put it in recycling. I always had a stack of the harder Friday and Saturday puzzles, partly finished, on my clipboard, to continue working on after finishing the easy ones. Now I just do them on my tablet.
posted by dorey_oh at 9:15 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Trying to develop telekinesis and telepathy.
Unfocusing my eyes and drinking the colors.
Getting on the wrong bus on purpose to get lost and take a couple hours to walk back home.
Counting all the different plants and insects while waiting for the bus.
Reading sci fi paperbacks.
Drawing, obsessively.
Privately betting on stuff: Which raindrop will make it to the bottom of the window first. Will I see three blue cars before I see five red cars.
Inventing and following rules for locomotion: Cross the street every time you step on a tree shadow. Adjust steps to step off the sidewalk with left foot, step on sidewalk with right foot.
Walking to nearest friend’s house, ring bell. If they answer, walking together to next nearest friend’s house. Repeat until group is large enough to go bowling, watch a movie, play goldeneye, go to coffee shop.
Consuming lots and lots of drugs. Most of the time solo day trips.
Getting lost in complex and detailed daydreams.
Staring at the wall and killing all thought until mild hallucinations take place, no need for drugs.
Exploring the city, going into forbidden places.
Listening to the same album 6 times in a row.
Intentionally subjecting myself to pain, thirst, hunger, extreme temperatures, etc… looking forwards to new sensations and states of consciousness.
Coming up with Byzantine sex fantasies leading up to overengineered masturbation.
Capturing small wildlife to observe and try to raise and breed.
Laying outside and watching the clouds.
Riding bikes for very long distances.
Setting stuff on fire using improvised incendiary devices.
Spending hours on a Saturday afternoon at the raver/metalhead/Rasta/hippie/rocker hangouts (mostly street markets and parks) to figure what party/concert to crash.
Spending hours on a Saturday night collecting clues to find the abandoned house, field, warehouse, or bar where the party/concert is supposed to take place.
Did I mention drugs? Hitchhiking and camping all over Mexico to use drugs right at the source.
Inducing depersonalization and dissociation without using drugs.
Inducing depersonalization and dissociation using drugs.
Spending days researching something at the library.
Sky watching.
People watching.
Interact socially with other humans.
These are some of the things I used to do before I got a smartphone and some I still do. I spent more time than most people being alone, and was very rarely bored. Now weeks can go by where I don’t do anything but work and absorb information from the internet.
The web is another big obstacle for me to overcome before I can DO stuff, but I would not change access to so much music and information in my pocket for the action filled days I used to have.
posted by Dr. Curare at 9:36 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
Unfocusing my eyes and drinking the colors.
Getting on the wrong bus on purpose to get lost and take a couple hours to walk back home.
Counting all the different plants and insects while waiting for the bus.
Reading sci fi paperbacks.
Drawing, obsessively.
Privately betting on stuff: Which raindrop will make it to the bottom of the window first. Will I see three blue cars before I see five red cars.
Inventing and following rules for locomotion: Cross the street every time you step on a tree shadow. Adjust steps to step off the sidewalk with left foot, step on sidewalk with right foot.
Walking to nearest friend’s house, ring bell. If they answer, walking together to next nearest friend’s house. Repeat until group is large enough to go bowling, watch a movie, play goldeneye, go to coffee shop.
Consuming lots and lots of drugs. Most of the time solo day trips.
Getting lost in complex and detailed daydreams.
Staring at the wall and killing all thought until mild hallucinations take place, no need for drugs.
Exploring the city, going into forbidden places.
Listening to the same album 6 times in a row.
Intentionally subjecting myself to pain, thirst, hunger, extreme temperatures, etc… looking forwards to new sensations and states of consciousness.
Coming up with Byzantine sex fantasies leading up to overengineered masturbation.
Capturing small wildlife to observe and try to raise and breed.
Laying outside and watching the clouds.
Riding bikes for very long distances.
Setting stuff on fire using improvised incendiary devices.
Spending hours on a Saturday afternoon at the raver/metalhead/Rasta/hippie/rocker hangouts (mostly street markets and parks) to figure what party/concert to crash.
Spending hours on a Saturday night collecting clues to find the abandoned house, field, warehouse, or bar where the party/concert is supposed to take place.
Did I mention drugs? Hitchhiking and camping all over Mexico to use drugs right at the source.
Inducing depersonalization and dissociation without using drugs.
Inducing depersonalization and dissociation using drugs.
Spending days researching something at the library.
Sky watching.
People watching.
Interact socially with other humans.
These are some of the things I used to do before I got a smartphone and some I still do. I spent more time than most people being alone, and was very rarely bored. Now weeks can go by where I don’t do anything but work and absorb information from the internet.
The web is another big obstacle for me to overcome before I can DO stuff, but I would not change access to so much music and information in my pocket for the action filled days I used to have.
posted by Dr. Curare at 9:36 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
We ate sand.
But then some bozos taught sand to do math and now look at us.
posted by straight at 9:47 PM on July 8, 2023 [12 favorites]
But then some bozos taught sand to do math and now look at us.
posted by straight at 9:47 PM on July 8, 2023 [12 favorites]
I'm leaning towards satire or at least a bit of trolling because I was seeing a version of this question on twitter just before this article was published.
But since we're all answering anyway: My mom was a school librarian and we had a lot of magazine subscriptions (Time, Newsweek, People, EW, Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated) and whenever we finished reading them she would take them to school. When I had money as a teenager I started buying magazines that were more geared to my interests. The 90s were the heyday of the Asian-American magazines. Anime and comics were going more mainstream (hey there Wizard). And unless you subscribed to the Observer, the Apter family of wrestling magazines helped whet fans' appetites.
This is all to say that I always had magazines around and would regularly keep something in my bag. When I moved to Japan I would buy whatever magazines that were in English whenever I was around bookstores in bigger cities (hey there British music mags).
But I also got this bad boy and an MD player when I got here. So I've also had the net (well, the imode version) and an easy way to carry lots of music for a bit longer than most people, I think.
(Along with video tapes and then DVDs, Japan has had CD rentals - no game rentals though - for a long time. And also CD singles are still a thing here. You could rent CDs and copy them to an MD pretty much the same way you do with cassette tapes. Easier to dub than tapes though.)
posted by LostInUbe at 10:12 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
But since we're all answering anyway: My mom was a school librarian and we had a lot of magazine subscriptions (Time, Newsweek, People, EW, Rolling Stone, Sports Illustrated) and whenever we finished reading them she would take them to school. When I had money as a teenager I started buying magazines that were more geared to my interests. The 90s were the heyday of the Asian-American magazines. Anime and comics were going more mainstream (hey there Wizard). And unless you subscribed to the Observer, the Apter family of wrestling magazines helped whet fans' appetites.
This is all to say that I always had magazines around and would regularly keep something in my bag. When I moved to Japan I would buy whatever magazines that were in English whenever I was around bookstores in bigger cities (hey there British music mags).
But I also got this bad boy and an MD player when I got here. So I've also had the net (well, the imode version) and an easy way to carry lots of music for a bit longer than most people, I think.
(Along with video tapes and then DVDs, Japan has had CD rentals - no game rentals though - for a long time. And also CD singles are still a thing here. You could rent CDs and copy them to an MD pretty much the same way you do with cassette tapes. Easier to dub than tapes though.)
posted by LostInUbe at 10:12 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
I’ve pondered this question more than once. And of course the answer is books. I always had a book, at least when I wasn’t playing with friends. Of course, my friends were sometimes bookish too. I remember my parents were always complaining about me having my nose in a book. I remember a three hour car trip where I read a dictionary in the car, and when I got to my cousin’s house, I read books from his shelf and explored the woods. When I visited my other cousin, we built girder and panel skyscrapers, played with GI Joes near the irrigation ditch, moved sprinkler pipe, and read books.
I was born in the mid-50s, and by the time I was in 5th grade I was reading everything, all the time (including the backs of cereal boxes). I was playing chess with my friends. And I certainly watched TV and listened to music on the stereo in the living room and on the radio (got my first transistor radio in junior high). In the 7th grade I first read The Lord of The Rings. Sometime between then and the beginning of high school I had to ask my parents to buy me new copies because I’d worn the first set out. So at least I have a good idea of what I was reading.
In the 80s I had a Walkman, and a book. In the 90s and early Oughties I had a succession of PalmPilots and a succession of MP3 players, and a succession of books.
In the 2000s and 2010s I had a few iPods, a GameBoy, and a book, which magically turned into a Kindle and many books. Then came the BlackBerry in 2006, and the smartphone in 2012, and the iPad in addition to the Kindle.
I’ve actually had to deliberately teach myself to stop doomscrolling and read more books (ebooks, really). The enshittification of Twitter and Reddit have helped with this.
posted by lhauser at 11:16 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
I was born in the mid-50s, and by the time I was in 5th grade I was reading everything, all the time (including the backs of cereal boxes). I was playing chess with my friends. And I certainly watched TV and listened to music on the stereo in the living room and on the radio (got my first transistor radio in junior high). In the 7th grade I first read The Lord of The Rings. Sometime between then and the beginning of high school I had to ask my parents to buy me new copies because I’d worn the first set out. So at least I have a good idea of what I was reading.
In the 80s I had a Walkman, and a book. In the 90s and early Oughties I had a succession of PalmPilots and a succession of MP3 players, and a succession of books.
In the 2000s and 2010s I had a few iPods, a GameBoy, and a book, which magically turned into a Kindle and many books. Then came the BlackBerry in 2006, and the smartphone in 2012, and the iPad in addition to the Kindle.
I’ve actually had to deliberately teach myself to stop doomscrolling and read more books (ebooks, really). The enshittification of Twitter and Reddit have helped with this.
posted by lhauser at 11:16 PM on July 8, 2023 [5 favorites]
"Okay, fine, but how did people occupy the time, attention, and perceptual orientation that have now been overtaken by smartphone use?"
In my case, the author begs the question. My smartphone-use has not come close to overtaking the time I still devote to reading so-called physical books, playing the guitar, listening to music on a CD player, watching films and TV shows on a TV, or conversing with loved ones, in person or over a landline.
posted by abakua at 11:52 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
In my case, the author begs the question. My smartphone-use has not come close to overtaking the time I still devote to reading so-called physical books, playing the guitar, listening to music on a CD player, watching films and TV shows on a TV, or conversing with loved ones, in person or over a landline.
posted by abakua at 11:52 PM on July 8, 2023 [1 favorite]
Ctrl-F "Book".
86 matches.
OK, we're good here.
posted by pompomtom at 1:25 AM on July 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
86 matches.
OK, we're good here.
posted by pompomtom at 1:25 AM on July 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
fwiw, Ian Bogost also wrote a book called Play Anything that's about seeking beauty and gratification in boring things or in everyday toil, so I also found this article deeply disorienting; but also yesterday I got halfway through David Sedaris' interview claiming that he actually got in 21,000 steps for the last 9 years before realizing he wasn't serious, so I think my satire detector is just very off this week.
I am a reader, but not the level of avid reader that was Have A Book On Me At All Times. The Economist and my city's local alt-weekly, The Boston Phoenix, were my regular background for workday lunches. I also subscribed to Cooks Illustrated and The Art of Eating, as well as The Atlantic, Wired, and Details. I threw out most of those magazines ten years ago, but still keep the food mags because the recipes are good, and it's occasionally a trip to read through them again and remember the 2000s, when the concept of a 100 mile diet was mindblowing.
I was a tech early adopter, starting at college a year before NCSA Mosaic was released and was building web pages for the school paper and radio station by the time I graduated. So, in addition to the usual pre-smartphone activities of hanging out with friends, going on bike rides, or listening to entire music albums, I spent a lot of my early leisure time in email threads and newgroups. Then my early and mid 20s were heavily occupied with Livejournal. My local social circle really got into longform personal writing, and friends and I would joke about how we'd sometimes be at a party looking bored, but were actually just silently composing the blog post that we were going to write when we got home.
I didn't realize it at the time, but those journal posts would go on to form this really durable memory layer for me. The act of observing an experience, thinking of it on the bike ride home, writing down the story of it, then interacting in the comments about it, and re-reading it -- all of the most concrete memories of my 20s and 30s were in some ways rooted by that process. My 40s have felt like they flew by and that's partially COVID isolation, partially how our perception of time changes as we age, but I feel that I just documented less of it because smartphones aren't great for longform writing, so my memories of the last decade have been more ephemeral.
posted by bl1nk at 4:52 AM on July 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
I am a reader, but not the level of avid reader that was Have A Book On Me At All Times. The Economist and my city's local alt-weekly, The Boston Phoenix, were my regular background for workday lunches. I also subscribed to Cooks Illustrated and The Art of Eating, as well as The Atlantic, Wired, and Details. I threw out most of those magazines ten years ago, but still keep the food mags because the recipes are good, and it's occasionally a trip to read through them again and remember the 2000s, when the concept of a 100 mile diet was mindblowing.
I was a tech early adopter, starting at college a year before NCSA Mosaic was released and was building web pages for the school paper and radio station by the time I graduated. So, in addition to the usual pre-smartphone activities of hanging out with friends, going on bike rides, or listening to entire music albums, I spent a lot of my early leisure time in email threads and newgroups. Then my early and mid 20s were heavily occupied with Livejournal. My local social circle really got into longform personal writing, and friends and I would joke about how we'd sometimes be at a party looking bored, but were actually just silently composing the blog post that we were going to write when we got home.
I didn't realize it at the time, but those journal posts would go on to form this really durable memory layer for me. The act of observing an experience, thinking of it on the bike ride home, writing down the story of it, then interacting in the comments about it, and re-reading it -- all of the most concrete memories of my 20s and 30s were in some ways rooted by that process. My 40s have felt like they flew by and that's partially COVID isolation, partially how our perception of time changes as we age, but I feel that I just documented less of it because smartphones aren't great for longform writing, so my memories of the last decade have been more ephemeral.
posted by bl1nk at 4:52 AM on July 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
As a kid in ur-Suburbia in the nineties and early noughties, it was time filled by a book that was brought along (school bus ride in the mornings/afternoons) or trying to daydream when that wasn't possible or I didn't have a book on me. I found boredom to be misery and so every shopping trip, doctor's visit, and long car ride was hellish.
When home, there was the local Feral Pack of Kids I was running around with doing the most ridiculous stuff to occupy time. We dug a small (bad, shallow, more of a fox hole really) trench network for paintball (I think?) at one point until someone wondered what the hell three kids were doing with shovels in the semi-private/public/who-knows woods adjacent to the housing development and came out to put a stop to it.
posted by Slackermagee at 6:58 AM on July 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
When home, there was the local Feral Pack of Kids I was running around with doing the most ridiculous stuff to occupy time. We dug a small (bad, shallow, more of a fox hole really) trench network for paintball (I think?) at one point until someone wondered what the hell three kids were doing with shovels in the semi-private/public/who-knows woods adjacent to the housing development and came out to put a stop to it.
posted by Slackermagee at 6:58 AM on July 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
David Sedaris is making jokes in that interview, but he is seriously into walking.
I don’t think the article is satire, but I do think it’s that engagement strategy where you say something wrong so everyone rushes in to comment. It’s a little sad how The Atlantic has become a clickbait factory, but this one is basically a harmless excuse for nostalgia.
posted by betweenthebars at 7:06 AM on July 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
I don’t think the article is satire, but I do think it’s that engagement strategy where you say something wrong so everyone rushes in to comment. It’s a little sad how The Atlantic has become a clickbait factory, but this one is basically a harmless excuse for nostalgia.
posted by betweenthebars at 7:06 AM on July 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
I had a book all the time. I still carry a book all the time because I get bored with Smartphones. I jotted down notes, in notebooks on scrap paper, in whatever else I could find in my bag, I watched people and maded up stories about them. I looked out the window and made up stories about the places I saw. I listened to music and made up stories about the songs. I talked to people on the phone. I made plans and met people, sometimes at places I'd never been to before, sometimes confirming days ahead of time and somehow we made it. I walked around/drove around and got myself deliberately lost to see what was there/try to get myself out of it. I fidgeted. I worried. I doodled. I made stuff (I used to weave together gum wrappers and stuff). I wrote letters to people. I went for long walks. I took pictures of things (and wasted plenty of film). I went shopping in person, and could not always find exactly what I wanted, but could sometimes discover something totally new. I would go out to a place just to see if I might run into someone I knew. I sat around in museums and libraries.
I literally still do all of these things.
posted by thivaia at 8:12 AM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
I literally still do all of these things.
posted by thivaia at 8:12 AM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
Things like waiting in a doctor’s office, waiting to board a plane, taking a long car or train ride, doing a mindless household chore.
I'm coming in very late to this thread, but I am a 57-year-old with four children ages 15 to 28. I got my first cellphone when #2 was about a year old, so in about 2002/3, for purposes of being reachable by babysitters. By the time #3 and #4 came along and were old enough to be bored, I had my first smartphone. I used to think a lot, as they entertained themselves during long waits, of how much of my childhood was spent being unwillingly dragged along on errands, or sitting in the car while my parents did things, or trying to entertain myself while they visited with friends. I have always been a thinker, and even as a kid enjoyed long car rides for that, and I had good experiences during these long waits, sometimes, especially if we were visiting relatives who lived in the country so I could go exploring, but for the most part, I was grateful to have something they could pass the time with.
I remember a long, long wait for a doctor when #2 was maybe 3, and my increasingly-desperate efforts to keep her entertained in a tiny exam room while we waited, after we'd used up the toys, snacks, and kids' books I'd brought with me. I was in there doing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" with her, for heaven's sake. We'd have both been a lot happier with a video to watch.
posted by Well I never at 9:58 AM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm coming in very late to this thread, but I am a 57-year-old with four children ages 15 to 28. I got my first cellphone when #2 was about a year old, so in about 2002/3, for purposes of being reachable by babysitters. By the time #3 and #4 came along and were old enough to be bored, I had my first smartphone. I used to think a lot, as they entertained themselves during long waits, of how much of my childhood was spent being unwillingly dragged along on errands, or sitting in the car while my parents did things, or trying to entertain myself while they visited with friends. I have always been a thinker, and even as a kid enjoyed long car rides for that, and I had good experiences during these long waits, sometimes, especially if we were visiting relatives who lived in the country so I could go exploring, but for the most part, I was grateful to have something they could pass the time with.
I remember a long, long wait for a doctor when #2 was maybe 3, and my increasingly-desperate efforts to keep her entertained in a tiny exam room while we waited, after we'd used up the toys, snacks, and kids' books I'd brought with me. I was in there doing "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" with her, for heaven's sake. We'd have both been a lot happier with a video to watch.
posted by Well I never at 9:58 AM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
At the same time, I recognize this question, "What did we do before..." and the effort to dredge up the memory. A few years ago, I was trying to remember how I booked campsites before the internet, and after much thinking, came up with: buy a guidebook; make some phone calls. I also remember, on long bike trips through Michigan as a teenager, rolling into a state park campground with no reservation and the expectation they'd have a place for us. They always did. That doesn't really happen anymore. Especially for in-demand parks, people book them up weeks and months in advance. Some of them have a date in late winter or early spring when they will start taking reservations, and people hang around waiting to pounce.
posted by Well I never at 10:01 AM on July 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by Well I never at 10:01 AM on July 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
It's also amusing to see people in this thread who are younger than me count "listened to Walkman" or "played on Gameboy" as before-time activities. I was 14 when the Walkman was introduced.
posted by Well I never at 10:02 AM on July 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Well I never at 10:02 AM on July 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
Smoking. That's what people did with idle time. Was there.
posted by readyfreddy at 10:43 AM on July 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by readyfreddy at 10:43 AM on July 9, 2023 [5 favorites]
Gosh, there really was A LOT of tobacco smoking. I was one of em too... just fumar away ze day...
posted by djseafood at 12:57 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by djseafood at 12:57 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
We listened to music with friends, talked with friends, had drinks with friends, had dinner with friends, got high with friends, went to bed with friends, consoled friends, did homework with friends, watched tv with friends, argued politics with friends, walked around with friends, helped friends move, watched movies with friends, played games with friends...
Awesome if you have the kind of friends where that's an option, otherwise books are pretty great too.
I'm probably kind of an outlier here because I really do not remember a 'before time'. I'm exactly a year older than the word smartphone, and they were widespread among adults by the time my ability to reliably remember technology kicks in, and widespread among children by the time I was doing any significant interacting with other children.
Got a smartphone for three months in 2019, hated it. Got a smartphone in January this year (for work, work paid for it), hate it. My personal phone is a Nokia brick and I have a second Nokia brick new in box for when that one dies. I can see the value of a smartphone if you are, e.g. in a country where the dominant language is one you speak poorly but otherwise honestly kind of no?
As a kid (not so long ago! I ceased being a kid legally only in 2013, when giving kids their own smartphones was de rigueur) my siblings and I had one phone between us. The youngest person leaving the house alone took the phone with them. It called. It texted. It played Snake. It... honestly did not really do anything else. I was the first one to start applying for jobs so when I moved out I got to keep the number and my parents got another number for my siblings.
I had a lot of books. I still have a lot of books. I do not buy pants or jackets that won't fit a normal Penguin paperback in at least one pocket.
posted by ngaiotonga at 3:49 PM on July 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
Awesome if you have the kind of friends where that's an option, otherwise books are pretty great too.
I'm probably kind of an outlier here because I really do not remember a 'before time'. I'm exactly a year older than the word smartphone, and they were widespread among adults by the time my ability to reliably remember technology kicks in, and widespread among children by the time I was doing any significant interacting with other children.
Got a smartphone for three months in 2019, hated it. Got a smartphone in January this year (for work, work paid for it), hate it. My personal phone is a Nokia brick and I have a second Nokia brick new in box for when that one dies. I can see the value of a smartphone if you are, e.g. in a country where the dominant language is one you speak poorly but otherwise honestly kind of no?
As a kid (not so long ago! I ceased being a kid legally only in 2013, when giving kids their own smartphones was de rigueur) my siblings and I had one phone between us. The youngest person leaving the house alone took the phone with them. It called. It texted. It played Snake. It... honestly did not really do anything else. I was the first one to start applying for jobs so when I moved out I got to keep the number and my parents got another number for my siblings.
I had a lot of books. I still have a lot of books. I do not buy pants or jackets that won't fit a normal Penguin paperback in at least one pocket.
posted by ngaiotonga at 3:49 PM on July 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
I used to load books onto my Palm Pilot and read them - I had the first three Game of Thrones books along with some Project Gutenberg text files for example.
posted by rfs at 4:28 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by rfs at 4:28 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
is how in the world did anyone get anywhere they were trying to go without GPS/google maps?
I think one could make a pretty good case that cities bulldozing freeways through downtowns and the generic arterial/highway design is at least partially due to allow people who were visiting/unfamiliar with cities to navigate them easily. Maps in the olden days sucked, especially if you were near downtown of an unfamiliar city. I'm sure the thinking was at least partially "why put people through that when we can put stuff on the side of major arterials and they can get there in 2-3 turns with spoken directions".
It'd probably make a decent research topic.
posted by The_Vegetables at 6:35 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
I think one could make a pretty good case that cities bulldozing freeways through downtowns and the generic arterial/highway design is at least partially due to allow people who were visiting/unfamiliar with cities to navigate them easily. Maps in the olden days sucked, especially if you were near downtown of an unfamiliar city. I'm sure the thinking was at least partially "why put people through that when we can put stuff on the side of major arterials and they can get there in 2-3 turns with spoken directions".
It'd probably make a decent research topic.
posted by The_Vegetables at 6:35 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
I'm in my 60s, tv was minimal, no electronics. I'm fortunate to have grown up in a family of readers, with books at home and a library and bookmobile available. Everybody had a radio, many families had a record player. In the mid 20th C., radio was a 'killer app' that brought news and music to nearly everybody. Listening to music was often a shared activity. When a new album came out, if a friend had a copy, we listened to it over and over. I grew up with WDAO, one of the best soul stations in the US, and WYSO, Antioch College radio. Many, many college radio stations are still excellent. WDAO now plays Today's Hits & Yesterday's Favorites, sigh, WYSO is a terrific community radio station.
When I was young, we played all over our neighborhood, rode bikes, played games of hide & seek until the streetlights came on. There was no AC. On summer nights, we'd go next door; the neighbors had a big screened porch and we'd play card games or board games, did puzzles. My neighborhood was close and safe, a wonderful resource. Most kids were free range.
Life wasn't so convenient, more time was spent by women cleaning, ironing, cooking, raising kids, sewing, mending. Cars needed maintenance and in lots of families it was done at home. The house would need paint, etc. My Dad worked long hours; the Dad next door had a small side business from his garage.
Before smartphones, people didn’t invest their in-between time into forging social bonds or doing self-improvement. That's wildly inaccurate, in my experience. I'm sorry the writer had such a wretched experience. Life wasn't idyllic; bad things happened, my family was very dysfunctional behind closed doors. But boredom was not the issue.
posted by theora55 at 7:09 PM on July 9, 2023 [6 favorites]
When I was young, we played all over our neighborhood, rode bikes, played games of hide & seek until the streetlights came on. There was no AC. On summer nights, we'd go next door; the neighbors had a big screened porch and we'd play card games or board games, did puzzles. My neighborhood was close and safe, a wonderful resource. Most kids were free range.
Life wasn't so convenient, more time was spent by women cleaning, ironing, cooking, raising kids, sewing, mending. Cars needed maintenance and in lots of families it was done at home. The house would need paint, etc. My Dad worked long hours; the Dad next door had a small side business from his garage.
Before smartphones, people didn’t invest their in-between time into forging social bonds or doing self-improvement. That's wildly inaccurate, in my experience. I'm sorry the writer had such a wretched experience. Life wasn't idyllic; bad things happened, my family was very dysfunctional behind closed doors. But boredom was not the issue.
posted by theora55 at 7:09 PM on July 9, 2023 [6 favorites]
"why put people through that when we can put stuff on the side of major arterials and they can get there in 2-3 turns with spoken directions"
So much so that even when the geography or politics made it difficult to cut a new Interatate right thru a city, the planners would often designate a highway ”Business Loop” through downtowns instead.
posted by rh at 7:13 PM on July 9, 2023
So much so that even when the geography or politics made it difficult to cut a new Interatate right thru a city, the planners would often designate a highway ”Business Loop” through downtowns instead.
posted by rh at 7:13 PM on July 9, 2023
how in the world did anyone get anywhere they were trying to go without GPS/google maps?
In SoCal every car had its copy of the Thomas Guide.
When GPS came along, you could ride around with a dedicated device. We had a Garmin Nuvi. Sort of about that time, maybe a little before, you’d get your route on MapQuest and print out step-by-step directions.
posted by notyou at 7:19 PM on July 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
In SoCal every car had its copy of the Thomas Guide.
When GPS came along, you could ride around with a dedicated device. We had a Garmin Nuvi. Sort of about that time, maybe a little before, you’d get your route on MapQuest and print out step-by-step directions.
posted by notyou at 7:19 PM on July 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
If you went on a trip, you used a road atlas, you got maps from AAA or mailed away for them. Yeah, I love GPS and the ability to go on road trips with scant planning. But the Interstate highway system made it possible to get to, say, Cincinnati, then you'd call your friends rom a payphone and they'd give directions or come meet you.
posted by theora55 at 7:20 PM on July 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
posted by theora55 at 7:20 PM on July 9, 2023 [3 favorites]
"exams that reeked of the chemicals used in the process"
Warm, blue and (in retrospect) aromatically carcinogenic.
posted by splifingate at 8:09 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
Warm, blue and (in retrospect) aromatically carcinogenic.
posted by splifingate at 8:09 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
I loved the AAA little map booklet. Also, Euchre. That's what we did. A lot of Euchre.
I've probably mentioned this here before, but I absolutely loved taking the train from Kalamazoo to Chicago to visit family, or to Ann Arbor to visit friends. I'd get dropped off at the station, and, probably as early as thirteen until about seventeen, I'd ride the train alone. Well, without parents with me. You were never really alone on Amtrak in the early 90s. I'd end up talking with whoever sat down next to me. It didn't hurt that, more often than not, I was traveling on odd days: Christmas Eve, or New Year's Day, when most people were already where they were supposed to be, leaving only the oddballs traveling by themselves. I remember, vividly, the youngish (early twenties) goth/tragic romantic poet guy sitting across the aisle from me on a Christmas Day trip. Long flowing trench coat, an eye patch under gold rimmed glasses, and a hanger set into the curtain holding all of the silk scarves (seriously, there must have been at least four or five of them) that he would, each and every time he stood up, throw around his neck with a flourish.
I met the flute player for Poi Dog Pondering. I met a proto-crust punk with rainbow colored hair and unshaven legs, who told me ridiculous stories about her life on the way back from Ann Arbor. Those are the ones I still remember from nearly thirty years and a different life ago, though I don't think I rode the train a single time without a conversation, even heading to the cafe car with people so they could smoke (different world) and we would have a place to play cards. Maybe it was that I was clearly pretty young, but the conductors would hang around and chat as well.
I can't remember the last time I took the train, but I know it was after the release of the Nintendo DS. I was home from Japan, and heading to Kalamazoo to visit my dad, so it must have been between 2002-2009, and I was excited to ride Amtrak again, looking forward to whoever I'd end up chatting with. The train pulled out of the station, and almost in unison, headphones went on throughout the car, and I just sat and looked out the window. If nothing else, the view from the train, looking at the backside of houses and farms from Chicago to Kalamazoo never changes.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:13 PM on July 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
I've probably mentioned this here before, but I absolutely loved taking the train from Kalamazoo to Chicago to visit family, or to Ann Arbor to visit friends. I'd get dropped off at the station, and, probably as early as thirteen until about seventeen, I'd ride the train alone. Well, without parents with me. You were never really alone on Amtrak in the early 90s. I'd end up talking with whoever sat down next to me. It didn't hurt that, more often than not, I was traveling on odd days: Christmas Eve, or New Year's Day, when most people were already where they were supposed to be, leaving only the oddballs traveling by themselves. I remember, vividly, the youngish (early twenties) goth/tragic romantic poet guy sitting across the aisle from me on a Christmas Day trip. Long flowing trench coat, an eye patch under gold rimmed glasses, and a hanger set into the curtain holding all of the silk scarves (seriously, there must have been at least four or five of them) that he would, each and every time he stood up, throw around his neck with a flourish.
I met the flute player for Poi Dog Pondering. I met a proto-crust punk with rainbow colored hair and unshaven legs, who told me ridiculous stories about her life on the way back from Ann Arbor. Those are the ones I still remember from nearly thirty years and a different life ago, though I don't think I rode the train a single time without a conversation, even heading to the cafe car with people so they could smoke (different world) and we would have a place to play cards. Maybe it was that I was clearly pretty young, but the conductors would hang around and chat as well.
I can't remember the last time I took the train, but I know it was after the release of the Nintendo DS. I was home from Japan, and heading to Kalamazoo to visit my dad, so it must have been between 2002-2009, and I was excited to ride Amtrak again, looking forward to whoever I'd end up chatting with. The train pulled out of the station, and almost in unison, headphones went on throughout the car, and I just sat and looked out the window. If nothing else, the view from the train, looking at the backside of houses and farms from Chicago to Kalamazoo never changes.
posted by Ghidorah at 8:13 PM on July 9, 2023 [4 favorites]
I remember in the mid-80s being trapped in a blizzard, taking a bus, needing my guy to meet me in the city two hours away. Called his elderly dad on a landline and told him to relay EXACTLY where I'd be in a few hours. Elderly dad fucked things up. The bus dropped me off in the middle of a busy interchange, in the middle of a blizzard. Freezing, no Uber, no Lyft, no taxi, no way to reach my guy ... who was frantically driving in the wrong area trying to find me. Eventually some total strangers took pity and dropped me near our apartment, guy eventually gave up and returned to the apartment. There was LITERALLY no way to communicate with people who weren't sitting by landlines. A lot of things suck now, but man. That sucked.
posted by cyndigo at 8:46 PM on July 9, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by cyndigo at 8:46 PM on July 9, 2023 [6 favorites]
Teleported with John Carter to Mars.
Flew ion-thrust spaceship push-pins between foxtails and thistle.
Dis-assembled my Dad's GF's television while they were, talking, upstairs.
Counted leaves on trees.
Sampled the local pond to watch amoebas & paramecii & cellular mitosis.
Peeled the skin, in layers, to the conclusion that a passion-fruit was much less exciting than an artichoke.
Listened to other languages, late at night, phasing into--and--out of--comprehension via SW.
Being lulled to sleep in deep Summer by the katy-dids stochastic ek-ek'ing.
Sitting on the porch in the flat, patient Kansas night watching as the lightning revealed the outlines of the hidden storm-heads 20-30 miles away.
Timeless mystery,
Where is it that you have run?
I hug your slipstream.
posted by splifingate at 8:47 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
Flew ion-thrust spaceship push-pins between foxtails and thistle.
Dis-assembled my Dad's GF's television while they were, talking, upstairs.
Counted leaves on trees.
Sampled the local pond to watch amoebas & paramecii & cellular mitosis.
Peeled the skin, in layers, to the conclusion that a passion-fruit was much less exciting than an artichoke.
Listened to other languages, late at night, phasing into--and--out of--comprehension via SW.
Being lulled to sleep in deep Summer by the katy-dids stochastic ek-ek'ing.
Sitting on the porch in the flat, patient Kansas night watching as the lightning revealed the outlines of the hidden storm-heads 20-30 miles away.
Timeless mystery,
Where is it that you have run?
I hug your slipstream.
posted by splifingate at 8:47 PM on July 9, 2023 [1 favorite]
I still enjoy long-distance drives for the pleasure of listening to music and thinking, I can go 12 hours without being bored, so back in the day an hour's bus ride was no challenge. Though I also always brought purses big enough to tuck a paperback book into, for when I wanted to read rather than daydream.
posted by tavella at 8:51 PM on July 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by tavella at 8:51 PM on July 9, 2023 [2 favorites]
Remember how there used to be a functioning press/fourth estate that could do things like bring down Nixon and now there's, like, not? Maybe that's what people were doing, paying for and then reading the paper? Maybe that's howcome every reporter on my local paper got fired and neighboring county's paper died entirely so now my paper is trying to deliver local news to two counties with no staff? And it went from like five or six separate sections to two, news and sports, and there's no Saturday paper and no opinions except online? Were people maybe paying to read the newspaper before they could get it for free on their phones?
posted by Don Pepino at 6:06 AM on July 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by Don Pepino at 6:06 AM on July 10, 2023 [6 favorites]
Were people maybe paying to read the newspaper before they could get it for free on their phones?That's not because of smartphones. That's because of Google and Craigslist.
Newspaper subscriptions cover a fraction of the costs of running a paper. Most of their revenue came from ads and classifieds, and once that business got eaten up by other online services, news media have been in an existential crisis ever since, driven to become the clickbait factories that we hate them for becoming. The New York Times still has a thriving subscription business in the smartphone age, but it's largely driven by people who want access to The Crossword, Wirecutter, NYT Cooking, and The Athletic
The public has never been willing to pay for news at a level where media outlets could fund themselves solely on subscription revenue.
posted by bl1nk at 6:42 AM on July 10, 2023 [5 favorites]
The public has never been willing to pay for news at a level where media outlets could fund themselves solely on subscription revenue.
PBS & NPR do good journalism, but they have to beg for money, which is an ethical tightrope. Otherwise, unlike most democratic western nations, the US does not have an arms-length-funded, nominally independent non-profit national broadcaster. So the most-consumed US news media outlets are commercial for-profit. The US public's trust in media remains low. Coincidence?
Also, I love where this thread's gone - friends, maps, road trips and train rides, the stuff we did Way Back When. Let me mention that we can still do just about all of that 'offline' stuff now, too, if we choose to. Make this the last social media thing you read today. ;-)
posted by Artful Codger at 7:13 AM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
PBS & NPR do good journalism, but they have to beg for money, which is an ethical tightrope. Otherwise, unlike most democratic western nations, the US does not have an arms-length-funded, nominally independent non-profit national broadcaster. So the most-consumed US news media outlets are commercial for-profit. The US public's trust in media remains low. Coincidence?
Also, I love where this thread's gone - friends, maps, road trips and train rides, the stuff we did Way Back When. Let me mention that we can still do just about all of that 'offline' stuff now, too, if we choose to. Make this the last social media thing you read today. ;-)
posted by Artful Codger at 7:13 AM on July 10, 2023 [2 favorites]
I always had at least one paperback on my person and I'd read or daydream. For trips long enough that I could not carry enough books to hold me the whole time I took embroidery with me to keep my hands busy while my mind wandered.
posted by Karmakaze at 8:06 AM on July 10, 2023
posted by Karmakaze at 8:06 AM on July 10, 2023
people's utter inability to exist without external stimuli baffles me. WHY are there loud ass TVs in every doctor's office blaring HGTV? why can't we just sit quietly? or read a book or just scroll on our phone. why does noisy TV have to be everywhere?
i was an only child and so played by myself all the time. perhaps that's why i am so much better at just staring out the window. that or my undiagnosed adhd which has me goldfishing from thought to thought to SQUIRREL! every 30 seconds.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 2:47 PM on July 10, 2023
i was an only child and so played by myself all the time. perhaps that's why i am so much better at just staring out the window. that or my undiagnosed adhd which has me goldfishing from thought to thought to SQUIRREL! every 30 seconds.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 2:47 PM on July 10, 2023
Well, books, obviously. Any time I was or am alone, I'm most likely to be reading a book. I used to carry at leat one book everywhere I went, with another in reserve if I was close to the end. Now, I carry at least 3-5 books in reserve in the Kindle app on my iPad.
Constantly checking my phone is definitely a temptation, but I'm just as happy to watch people and the world go by. That's definitely a lost art to some extent, because there's constant pressure to be doing something instead of 'wasting time'. Observing the world is the opposite to wasting time, in my view.
posted by dg at 3:24 PM on July 10, 2023
Constantly checking my phone is definitely a temptation, but I'm just as happy to watch people and the world go by. That's definitely a lost art to some extent, because there's constant pressure to be doing something instead of 'wasting time'. Observing the world is the opposite to wasting time, in my view.
posted by dg at 3:24 PM on July 10, 2023
I used to carry whatever paperback book I was reading with me when I was going to have to stand in line somewhere like the post office.
posted by KelsonV at 4:54 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by KelsonV at 4:54 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
After unexpectedly landing myself in a parental role at forty-eight, I had to start reckoning with the difference between the enduring lessons that were important and valuable to me and lessons that applied to a new world.
I know, for one, that I can't share the lessons of how being bullied relentlessly throughout my youth taught me to reinforce the value of my own place in the world, because I don't think that kids should suffer through what I suffered through to learn the things that ended up processed through a sort of slow-motion lifetime tonglen meditation from lead into gold. I can't directly share the glacial lessons that came from being misunderstood and mismanaged by well-meaning adults who couldn't understand the signs and wonders that came with the way my brain is wired.
I can't explain what it was like being a gay teenager in the ugly heart of the Reagan reign of error, when a disease came along that wiped out people just like me while people just like the rest of the country joked and shrugged…and eventually, after all that bleakness, mostly changed their minds. I can't explain what it feels like to realize how many of my little philosophical tics and habits loop back to that stretch of long-denied trauma.
There's just no context for it.
I don't want my kid to have context for it. She's just turned eleven, and is still full of joy and that fading self-centered exuberance with middle school looming months away. I want her to be as mystified by that shit as I was by encyclopedia pictures of George Wallace in a doorway, or of a song like "Strange Fruit."
All these lessons will have their time, but the one I focus on now, because this is that rare and magic moment when it can latch into the grooves in her brain, is the importance of having nothing to do and just being there, caught up in that jittery stasis of being unsure what to do next.
I had my addictions, my early ludic loops, like my battered Walkmen that bankrupted my budget for double-As before I got smart and did the math for rechargeables, or the beaten copies of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and The Martian Chronicles that I dragged around like security blankets full of narratives, and I can well remember the panic of breaking a portable tape player on a vacation and realizing that I was stuck with the sound of the world around me, but more than that—I told myself stories.
I told myself stories and I watched people and faces and eavesdropped on conversation and told myself stories and told those stories again and again in my inner monologue until they burned into my memory as if they were real memories, and it was like I'd found electricity living on my fingertips—just little crackling sparks leaking out of the air the way power lines sizzle when it's humid and you can hear a thousand little arcs tracing the lines overhead.
I'd sit on the school bus, watching neighborhoods drifting by, with people climbing into cars and trash piled out for collection, and wonder what those lives were, or watch run-down southern towns drifting dusty trails as we'd drive to my father's old lands, or watch the way the moon chased our car just behind the treetops at night when their weren't enough cars to light up a book in the sanctuary of our old silver and purple Suburban.
"So, like, no one had phones or computers or anything?"
"Yeah. We had a computer, but we were unusual, and it didn't connect to anything. Everything we knew was about half gossip, like everything you every heard about a band or an actor. It was all just stuff in a fog, with no fact checking. Every few years, all our parents would run around in a panic that bad kids were handing out temporary tattoos with drugs in them, but it was just nonsense."
I have to curb my instincts to capture these conversation, too, as a sort of object lesson in comparative experience of youth and a wiser and somewhat more melancholy adulthood, but I always listen, and ponder how to share the value of being bored and what that itchy, uncomfortable sensation had to offer. It's just a process of distillation and refinement, all done in the head, with examples as needed.
"What are you doing, Joe-B?" asked Little Miss, unexpectedly out of bed and downstairs in my morning quiet time just before dawn, when I sit quietly in the sunroom with all the lights off, in silence with my hands folded on my lap.
"I'm sitting."
"Why?"
"Because it's when I charge my batteries for the day. Why are you up?"
"I couldn't sleep. Can I sit here?"
"You can." She sat with me on the couch, and leaned against my shoulder.
"What are you thinking about?"
"Mostly nothing. I'm listening to my tinnitus and what I think is a mouse in the kitchen."
"Are you bored?"
"Yes, but that's important."
"Why?"
"Because if you let yourself get very bored, but stick with it, you might tell yourself something important."
"Did you tell yourself something important?"
"Not yet," I said, in my let's-not-wake-up-Daddy-upstairs voice. "But I usually do."
"When you do, can we make breakfast?"
"Yes. French toast. I'll set a timer for eleven minutes, we'll sit here quietly watching the sky turn, and then we'll make breakfast."
"Okay."
Incremental changes add up, I tell myself, and set a timer.
posted by sonascope at 6:43 PM on July 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
I know, for one, that I can't share the lessons of how being bullied relentlessly throughout my youth taught me to reinforce the value of my own place in the world, because I don't think that kids should suffer through what I suffered through to learn the things that ended up processed through a sort of slow-motion lifetime tonglen meditation from lead into gold. I can't directly share the glacial lessons that came from being misunderstood and mismanaged by well-meaning adults who couldn't understand the signs and wonders that came with the way my brain is wired.
I can't explain what it was like being a gay teenager in the ugly heart of the Reagan reign of error, when a disease came along that wiped out people just like me while people just like the rest of the country joked and shrugged…and eventually, after all that bleakness, mostly changed their minds. I can't explain what it feels like to realize how many of my little philosophical tics and habits loop back to that stretch of long-denied trauma.
There's just no context for it.
I don't want my kid to have context for it. She's just turned eleven, and is still full of joy and that fading self-centered exuberance with middle school looming months away. I want her to be as mystified by that shit as I was by encyclopedia pictures of George Wallace in a doorway, or of a song like "Strange Fruit."
All these lessons will have their time, but the one I focus on now, because this is that rare and magic moment when it can latch into the grooves in her brain, is the importance of having nothing to do and just being there, caught up in that jittery stasis of being unsure what to do next.
I had my addictions, my early ludic loops, like my battered Walkmen that bankrupted my budget for double-As before I got smart and did the math for rechargeables, or the beaten copies of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and The Martian Chronicles that I dragged around like security blankets full of narratives, and I can well remember the panic of breaking a portable tape player on a vacation and realizing that I was stuck with the sound of the world around me, but more than that—I told myself stories.
I told myself stories and I watched people and faces and eavesdropped on conversation and told myself stories and told those stories again and again in my inner monologue until they burned into my memory as if they were real memories, and it was like I'd found electricity living on my fingertips—just little crackling sparks leaking out of the air the way power lines sizzle when it's humid and you can hear a thousand little arcs tracing the lines overhead.
I'd sit on the school bus, watching neighborhoods drifting by, with people climbing into cars and trash piled out for collection, and wonder what those lives were, or watch run-down southern towns drifting dusty trails as we'd drive to my father's old lands, or watch the way the moon chased our car just behind the treetops at night when their weren't enough cars to light up a book in the sanctuary of our old silver and purple Suburban.
"So, like, no one had phones or computers or anything?"
"Yeah. We had a computer, but we were unusual, and it didn't connect to anything. Everything we knew was about half gossip, like everything you every heard about a band or an actor. It was all just stuff in a fog, with no fact checking. Every few years, all our parents would run around in a panic that bad kids were handing out temporary tattoos with drugs in them, but it was just nonsense."
I have to curb my instincts to capture these conversation, too, as a sort of object lesson in comparative experience of youth and a wiser and somewhat more melancholy adulthood, but I always listen, and ponder how to share the value of being bored and what that itchy, uncomfortable sensation had to offer. It's just a process of distillation and refinement, all done in the head, with examples as needed.
"What are you doing, Joe-B?" asked Little Miss, unexpectedly out of bed and downstairs in my morning quiet time just before dawn, when I sit quietly in the sunroom with all the lights off, in silence with my hands folded on my lap.
"I'm sitting."
"Why?"
"Because it's when I charge my batteries for the day. Why are you up?"
"I couldn't sleep. Can I sit here?"
"You can." She sat with me on the couch, and leaned against my shoulder.
"What are you thinking about?"
"Mostly nothing. I'm listening to my tinnitus and what I think is a mouse in the kitchen."
"Are you bored?"
"Yes, but that's important."
"Why?"
"Because if you let yourself get very bored, but stick with it, you might tell yourself something important."
"Did you tell yourself something important?"
"Not yet," I said, in my let's-not-wake-up-Daddy-upstairs voice. "But I usually do."
"When you do, can we make breakfast?"
"Yes. French toast. I'll set a timer for eleven minutes, we'll sit here quietly watching the sky turn, and then we'll make breakfast."
"Okay."
Incremental changes add up, I tell myself, and set a timer.
posted by sonascope at 6:43 PM on July 10, 2023 [10 favorites]
"When you do, can we make breakfast?"
Kids, ever the pragmatists!
What an excellent post, sonascope! Old that I am, with child long-grown, you may have even reminded me of a crucial practice or two.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:12 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Kids, ever the pragmatists!
What an excellent post, sonascope! Old that I am, with child long-grown, you may have even reminded me of a crucial practice or two.
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:12 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Not the least of which is French toast...
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:13 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Greg_Ace at 7:13 PM on July 10, 2023 [1 favorite]
Mazel tov, sonascope.
This thread is staying with me, and I'm old enough that this is stuff I think about, anyway. It used to be really hard, in my small provincial Midwest town, to get real news. I realize now that the shoe repair guy had posters of Black musicians visiting clubs I knew nothing about, and a local Black newspaper. Probably the best part of the Web, for me, is getting news from anywhere and everywhere and being able to factcheck it. As well as Metafilter, which, for all its up and downs, is a platform to connect with people who may be mostly in the US, but certainly not all, and not entirely homogenous.
On facebook, I try to follow news organizations from around the world, but they get buried. My ideal large scale social media would allow me to weight my follows to see what I want, not what an algorithm wants me to want.
posted by theora55 at 8:21 AM on July 11, 2023
This thread is staying with me, and I'm old enough that this is stuff I think about, anyway. It used to be really hard, in my small provincial Midwest town, to get real news. I realize now that the shoe repair guy had posters of Black musicians visiting clubs I knew nothing about, and a local Black newspaper. Probably the best part of the Web, for me, is getting news from anywhere and everywhere and being able to factcheck it. As well as Metafilter, which, for all its up and downs, is a platform to connect with people who may be mostly in the US, but certainly not all, and not entirely homogenous.
On facebook, I try to follow news organizations from around the world, but they get buried. My ideal large scale social media would allow me to weight my follows to see what I want, not what an algorithm wants me to want.
posted by theora55 at 8:21 AM on July 11, 2023
why does noisy TV have to be everywhere?
My suspicion is places like the gym (worst case, when they put one inside the sauna), a doctor's office, or restaurants, is owners get some incentive from the advertisers (or maybe even ClearChannel) to do so. Surely customers don't request such. (An exception: sports bars.) Don't like that TV, blaring away in a public place? Remember, you can still get the TV B Gone (and if the stock model is too feeble, a heavy-duty Arduino kit version is available) although unfortunately, a lot of public-facing TV sets have been 'hardened' in response).
I must say I find the past tense in this thread really sad and distressing. Just because you got a cell phone, you stopped reading books? And maps? Only yesterday you could have spotted me, pulled over, studying my AAA road map for a quick orientation. Your accursed smartphone has taken that skill away from you? Or distorted it... a couple times now I've casually inquired of a Young where something nearby is, and instead of the quick 'down the road, second left' instruction I was hoping for, I have to stand there while the smartphone's brought out and the address entered... and still no answer.
posted by Rash at 8:56 AM on July 11, 2023
My suspicion is places like the gym (worst case, when they put one inside the sauna), a doctor's office, or restaurants, is owners get some incentive from the advertisers (or maybe even ClearChannel) to do so. Surely customers don't request such. (An exception: sports bars.) Don't like that TV, blaring away in a public place? Remember, you can still get the TV B Gone (and if the stock model is too feeble, a heavy-duty Arduino kit version is available) although unfortunately, a lot of public-facing TV sets have been 'hardened' in response).
I must say I find the past tense in this thread really sad and distressing. Just because you got a cell phone, you stopped reading books? And maps? Only yesterday you could have spotted me, pulled over, studying my AAA road map for a quick orientation. Your accursed smartphone has taken that skill away from you? Or distorted it... a couple times now I've casually inquired of a Young where something nearby is, and instead of the quick 'down the road, second left' instruction I was hoping for, I have to stand there while the smartphone's brought out and the address entered... and still no answer.
posted by Rash at 8:56 AM on July 11, 2023
Just because you got a cell phone, you stopped reading books?
Books yes (mostly); reading no.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:13 AM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
Books yes (mostly); reading no.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:13 AM on July 11, 2023 [1 favorite]
Just because you got a cell phone, you stopped reading books? And maps? Only yesterday you could have spotted me, pulled over, studying my AAA road map for a quick orientation.
Lots of people get motion sick reading on a train or in the car. I recall people reading on airplanes, but rarely on a subway or commuter type train. Not a newspaper, maybe occasionally a book. Occasionally people carried them, but never had them out reading them.
And there are way more tvs now in Drs offices, restaurants, and bars than there were in the past. In the past in a doctors office, you might have gotten some musak and later, tvs playing ads for pharma products or services. In a restaurant, a grainy local tv channel on the news or weather, but showing nothing anyone would want to watch for more than a few minutes. In a bar, a sports station or two (except for sports bars, whose thing was they had a lot of tv channels).
So I'm not sure I agree that people read in public more often in the past than they do now.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:50 PM on July 11, 2023
Lots of people get motion sick reading on a train or in the car. I recall people reading on airplanes, but rarely on a subway or commuter type train. Not a newspaper, maybe occasionally a book. Occasionally people carried them, but never had them out reading them.
And there are way more tvs now in Drs offices, restaurants, and bars than there were in the past. In the past in a doctors office, you might have gotten some musak and later, tvs playing ads for pharma products or services. In a restaurant, a grainy local tv channel on the news or weather, but showing nothing anyone would want to watch for more than a few minutes. In a bar, a sports station or two (except for sports bars, whose thing was they had a lot of tv channels).
So I'm not sure I agree that people read in public more often in the past than they do now.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:50 PM on July 11, 2023
I do think people read in public more now than in the past. But I think people read with intent much less often. Browsing Facebook et al on your phone is technically reading, but there's no real intent there and mostly people are just occupying their mind because they can't stand to 'waste time' doing nothing.
posted by dg at 8:54 PM on July 11, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by dg at 8:54 PM on July 11, 2023 [5 favorites]
I may not be all the way back in the dark ages, but I'm certainly having a think about this topic while my Comcast connection has been dead as a doornail for almost four hours now and my at&t data is slower than the shiny new 3G service I had 20 years ago. The modern Internet truly sucks. As in it sucks so much bandwidth just to load a simple webpage that 2Mbps/128Kbps seems useless for anything but MeFi and email.
I find myself craving a change of scenery, but between the nearly unprecedented sea surface temperatures and the dust blowing over from Africa it's unbearably hot out. Turns out that three hours is about my limit for amusing myself at home without anything in particular to do.
posted by wierdo at 7:47 AM on July 12, 2023
I find myself craving a change of scenery, but between the nearly unprecedented sea surface temperatures and the dust blowing over from Africa it's unbearably hot out. Turns out that three hours is about my limit for amusing myself at home without anything in particular to do.
posted by wierdo at 7:47 AM on July 12, 2023
I still read, I just can read on a device that hold an entire library instead of finishing a paperback halfway through a trip and being stuck with nothing to read.
posted by Karmakaze at 10:57 AM on July 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Karmakaze at 10:57 AM on July 12, 2023 [2 favorites]
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posted by Captaintripps at 9:59 AM on July 8, 2023 [72 favorites]