- Watch tv.
- Read a book.
- Play single-player pc games.
- Literally go outside and touch grass.
There’s something to be said for browsing TV. Having favorites channels and recalling between two different shows between commercials. Sucks if commercials were synced.
Like, some films I wouldn’t put on voluntarily but I’d watch if I caught it on you know? Also found a lot of new stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise seen.
It’s interesting how some movies suck you in even though they’re definitely aren’t your thing.
Back in the 80s TV where I lived used to show Bollywood films at about 1am, which was when I got home from work. So I started watching this film, which was apparently a romance. Sparky career woman rejects advances of handsome fellow. Everyone starts singing and dancing. Ok, a musical then. Thugs burst in and shoot the place up. Woman’s father is killed, she swears vengeance. Uh ok… Local politician tries to shut down newspaper our heroine has just inherited, handsome fellow intervenes. More singing and dancing, ending in fireworks! which is apparently Bollywood for hot sex. Plot twist, handsome fellow is actually a baddie! I had to stop watching at 4am, no idea how it ended up.
When in the bathroom, the marketing and ingredients to all the shampoos were read.
Some people had magazine racks next to the toilet. There was a whole Seinfeld episode about George taking a book into the bathroom.
Some tropes of the 80s and 90s: Teenagers ignoring their family while listening to a Walkman. Dads reading the newspaper and ignoring their family. Moms talking on the landline phone with friends and neighhbors. Nerds reading comic books. Dads playing golf. Mom shopping. Teens just “hanging out” at some random place like a parking lot, near a lake, under a bridge, behind the band hall, etc. Smoking. Crossword puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles. Cards.
I have learned a lot about you, looking through your post history. Would you mind looking through mine?
I don’t know, but I looked through your post history and I was rather less impressed. :(
We used to interact physically with other people…
At 10pm on a weekday? I mean I get chatting to your significant other about stuff but outside of that I don’t see anything happening even if we removed phones from the equation.
They used to have these things called “books”, before they were all banned.
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.
Go to bed early, sleep well, wake up for a whole new day feeling refreshed.
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.