‘People who grew up without smartphones, what did you actually do when you were bored?’ – 17 distractions from yesteryear

The pre-smartphone era is quickly vanishing into the rearview mirror of history, and along with it a different way of life that younger people are unfamiliar with.

This has prompted the internet’s youngsters to wonder what the world was like in a time before smartphones.

Reddit user altaf770 took a particular interest in how people killed time before they could doomscroll by posing this question to r/askReddit:

‘People who grew up without smartphones, what did you actually do when you were bored?’

Here are the top replies that will have readers of a certain age pining for the recent past…

1.

‘Went out on bike rides, all. the. time. doing that with your buddies was a peak experience, never forget.’
-account deleted

2.

‘I made mixtapes from music playing on the radio and played pinball on my computer.’
-smoothcriminal562

3.

‘Back then, life was all about being outside. We rode bikes everywhere, played and hung out with friends. Sure, we had video games and cable TV, but my parents would make us sit halfway across the room because they thought the TV gave off radiation, lol! If you wanted to see a friend, you’d call their house, and if no one picked up, that was it—you’d just walk over and knock on the door.’
-jaimebaskin

4.

‘Built forts in the woods. Spent time improving said forts. Defended forts from rival fort builders. If it rained after school, we played video games. We read a lot before bed because TV wasn’t allowed past a certain time in my house. As a result, I grew up to be a librarian, but only because the job market for fort builders is pretty weak.’
-bellelap

5.

‘Read, listened to music, went to the library or the mall, called a friend and talked.’
-Scientist_Alarmed

6.

‘All the things you use your phone to arrange, except doom scrolling.

Put your phone down and try things.’
-jekewa

7.

‘Read, play video games, watch VHS movies, channel surf. As a kid growing up in the 90s I have so many memories of playing my Gameboy or SNES on snow days, often while reruns of old TV shows played in the background. I used to carry books around at school for me to read after I finished assignments. I loved going to the library and researching PCs(which we couldn’t afford) and checking out books on ecology, cooking and cars. My Mom never felt bad about spending money on books for us, we had books like My Teacher is an Alien, scary story anthologies and like all the Goosebumps books(it was all my brother would read).’
-AaronfromKY

8.

‘I don’t remember ever really being bored. I had house chores, books, a swing set, crafts, cartoons and an imagination.’
-prettylemontoast

9.

‘I grew up in a strange tiny little slither of a moment where technology had begun booming but smartphones were not yet really a thing.

I’ll describe my experience at around 8-11 years old.

I had a playstation 2. Not online gaming, but gaming all the same (Simpsons Hit and Run! IYKYK). For online access I had MSN, I could access forums and YouTube. Now during a bit of this time I had dial up so it was really quite rubbish. And YouTube was in its weird flash animation days. But it kept me entertained. My sister and I had Gameboys, which then we got Nintendo DSs. At maybe 13(?) we got a Nintendo Wii.

However because it was all offline gaming you sometimes felt the need for human interactions. Because of this I’d just jump on my bike, text my pals and whoever wasn’t grounded that day would meet at the edge of the woods.

Sometimes mum would give us money for chips and we would run down to the chippy and get our bag of chips and scurry off to the park to munch on chips and ketchup.

We built forts in the woods out of sticks and leaves. Learned tricks on our bikes… Raced each other. Sometimes we would play football on the school field, sometimes we would play a game called Kerby (you’d throw a football to hit the kerb on the other side of the road and if you hit it right it would bounce right back at you).

My best friend had a trampoline in her garden, and I had a little pool. So we would go over each other’s house to play on one of those. She also kept chickens so I spent a lot of time there. Her siblings were about the same age as my sister near enough. So we all spent a lot of time together.

Ultimately, in summary. I was never really THAT bored. But when you were bored… You were just bored.

But I GENUINELY think I am more bored now, as an adult with a smart phone than I was a kid without.’
-SecondRemarkable2473

10.

‘You never admitted to or acted bored. Your parents would find something for you to do. Unpaid manual labor usually.’
-SauronHubbard