‘What did we do before we could just scroll on our phones?’ – 17 downtime habits from the pre-brain-rot era
It’s safe to say that most of us spend too much time on our phones. You might even be reading this article from the glowing slab of delights we all keep in our pockets.
Endless scrolling is still a relatively new innovation though, prompting Careless_Squirrel728 to wonder what people did in their free time before it came long:
‘I desperately want to use my phone less. It’s such a time suck and I often don’t even enjoy it. I’m 33. I can remember a life without smart phones but I can’t remember what I used to DO in dead time.
‘Like this morning. I’ve finished my breakfast so now I’m just scrolling on my phone. Before I got up to make breakfast, I also scrolled on my phone. No plans today except a swim and some house jobs so I can see some high screen time in my future.
‘Please remind me. What did we used to do?’
Read the top answers by, sigh, scrolling down through these replies…
1.
‘Flicked between TV channels’
-banwe11
2.
‘Argued about facts that you couldn’t look up easily.’
-pointsofellie
3.
‘Read the back of shampoo bottles’
-Able_Resident_1291
4.
‘Watching top gear repeats on Dave’
-KaylinT01
5.
‘We used to buy and read newspapers.
‘We watched a lot more generic tv.
‘There was TeleText and Ceefax!
‘I’m certain that we’re also forgetting that life was a lot less convenient before the internet/smart phones and we had to dedicate more time to things like banking, calling up our utilities, filling in forms etc.’
–GlumAd9856
6.
‘Bamboozle on Teletext.’
-mdmnl
7.
‘I used to read magazines, read books, paint, draw, call friends for a chat, play video games and post/read online forums about things that interested me.’
-fuzzydogpaws
8.
‘I think I’m just naturally addicted to distractions. When I was a kid I would obsessively read, even when the lights were turned out I would put on audio cassettes. Then when I was a teenager I became obsessed with TV, 24 sky TV was amazing to me, I would stay up till early in the morning just watching QVC or late night quiz channels. Now I scroll endlessly. Looking at the patterns in my life I can see it’s not the media that’s the problem, it’s how I obsess over it.’
-Key_Barber_4161
9.
‘Generally, the Argos catalogue.
‘After hours: the Grattan catalogue.’
-Antique-Primary-2413