• edric@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago
    • Watch tv.
    • Read a book.
    • Play single-player pc games.
    • Literally go outside and touch grass.
    • lennybird@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      There’s something to be said for browsing TV. Having favorites channels and recalling between two different shows between commercials. Sucks if commercials were synced.

      Like, some films I wouldn’t put on voluntarily but I’d watch if I caught it on you know? Also found a lot of new stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise seen.

      • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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        5 months ago

        It’s interesting how some movies suck you in even though they’re definitely aren’t your thing.

  • Nasom@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    When in the bathroom, the marketing and ingredients to all the shampoos were read.

  • Boozilla@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Some tropes of the 80s and 90s: Teenagers ignoring their family while listening to a Walkman. Dads reading the newspaper and ignoring their family. Moms talking on the landline phone with friends and neighhbors. Nerds reading comic books. Dads playing golf. Mom shopping. Teens just “hanging out” at some random place like a parking lot, near a lake, under a bridge, behind the band hall, etc. Smoking. Crossword puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles. Cards.

    • TheMinions@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      At 10pm on a weekday? I mean I get chatting to your significant other about stuff but outside of that I don’t see anything happening even if we removed phones from the equation.

      • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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        5 months ago

        You’d be surprised how many phone calls took place at that time.

        Mayne talking about a show, or chatting someone up, etc. You were bored, so a phone was great.

        • TheMinions@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          Fair enough.

          I didn’t consider a phone call from a dumb phone as human contact. Guess it goes to show how much I conflate phone with smart phone now.

        • TheMinions@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          I mean that’s not interacting with other people on a weeknight is all haha.

          I don’t feel bad texting (or replying here late at night) but I wouldn’t go knock on my neighbors’s door past 8 and expect to talk to them or anything like that.

    • Altima NEO@lemmy.zip
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      5 months ago

      God that was the worst. Nothing good on TV. Nothing good to eat in the fridge. Too hot to go for a walk. It’s a school night, so your friends can’t come out to play yet. Just sitting there staring at the street as cars go by.

  • Tattorack@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Read books, read newspapers, chat on the land-line phone for hours.

    Before the cliché of everyone being with their faces in smartphones there were clichés about husbands who do nothing but read newspapers all day, or teenage daughters that massively inflate the phone bill because she’s talking with her friends for hours, or children with square eyes watching brain rotting cartoons all day.

  • solrize@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    We had something like e-readers and they didn’t need recharging as they were made out of dead trees. But each one held just one book, so you had to take a bunch of them to the bathroom with you.

      • solrize@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Right. There were also Ace Doubles, but you had to be good at reading upside down if you wanted to use both halves.

    • uid0gid0@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      This reminds me of the time I checked out all the Dune books from the library, they were all hardbacks and the stack was nearly 2 feet high. The librarian was like, “You’re not going to read all that before they’re due” She was right but she let me check them all out anyway.

  • Swarfega@lemm.ee
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    5 months ago

    I used to grab anything I could to read when taking a shit. Even reading shampoo bottle labels. Now I’m here typing this mess to you guys as I take a dump.

    • erp@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      I prefer the phrase ‘giving a dump’, because I sure don’t seem to be taking anything away from the transaction.

      Alas I have digressed. I too indulged in the literary expositions of the shampoo bottle. Conditioner only on Fridays.

  • MrFloppy@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago
    • Work more.
    • Go to church.
    • Go to a witch burning.
    • Participate in a crusade.
    • From which century are you asking?

  • Resol van Lemmy@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Television was actually fun to watch. Magazines were actually fun to read. Video games were actually fun to play. Hell, playing outside was fun. Playing with toys was fun (even as an adult). Spending time with users on early internet forums was also very fun. Music was much more aesthetically pleasing to listen to (at least the hits of the 00s were, imo). We fidgeted with literally anything we could think of. Pens, rulers, balls (it’s not what you think), toys, even our own fingers.

    It was really easy to get bored back then too, but at least it was really easy to escape boredom back then.

  • Phegan@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Over the last two decades we have reduced the amount of time spent to get many of the items we need. Since we can now order online from our homes we don’t have to go out and get them, this frees up a reasonable chunk of time.

    Also, over the last 50 or so years we have lost many 3rd places. A 3rd place is where you would spend your time that is not work or home. A bar, community center, an arcade…ect. those were a common place to spend time socializing.

    Finally, items like reading and watching TV filled a lot of time. From reading the newspaper to getting the local news. Channel surfing was a big thing for a while. You would cycle through channels until you found something you wanted to watch, you could cycle channels for a while before finding something, so that took up a large chunk of time.

  • John@discuss.tchncs.de
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    5 months ago

    I remember reading any text i found while beeing on toilette when i was a kid(even shampoo ingredients).

    • Andonyx@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Ah, the panic of having to use the bathroom so severely you can’t make it to your book or magazine in time. Oh look, I wonder what Methyllaurelsulfate does?

      I always thought the bathroom reader books were tacky and stupid, then a I got a couple and they came in clutch so many times.

      Now that I have a phone, I think it’s kinda gross to have items out for everyone to touch while using the toilet. Weird how perception changes.

  • LeadersAtWork@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I was getting my vehicle worked over recently. At the time I was listening to a podcast. A couple other people, probably early 50s were chatting. The old dude in the corner, likely around 70-80 was just sitting there hands empty, looking around, reading nothing like some kind of psychopath.

    For 40 minutes.

    He did nothing.

    It was honestly rather impressive.

      • LeadersAtWork@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Whoaaa whoa, whoa now. I don’t want the block demolished. Psycho old man strength vs shooty patootie police? I was just there for an oil change and to check on some potential damage.

  • Valmond@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    We also were bored quite much. We also did lots of slightly less boring things like just runnung around, reading half bad books or learning assembler.