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Meditated / mindfulness more. Listened to radio/music more. Collected physical media to play in cars or tv players. Physical books! For me, smartphones have only filled in small gaps while waiting, when I retire looking forward to getting rid of it. Personal social media has never worked for me, I can’t really create new connections this way. It’s all just temporary garbage fluff!
It’s interesting, mindfulness and meditation really weren’t that popular, at least in a mainstream way, before smartphones got popular. I feel like a big part of why it blew up was pretty much because people were feeling overwhelmed with modern multitasking and needed an outlet.
I was smaller but I had a glimpse of the life before smartphones. The generation before any kind of widespread telephony is dying out but since then, people called each other a lot, like a lot a lot. They watched TV in the mornings and evenings, ran errands, read the paper, went to bars, hobby clubs and nightclubs, cafes. We still do that now, but you have to make a concious effort to avoid using a computer or smartphone.
So many passes, cards and memberships are now digital, I kind of miss the feel of carrying plastic and paper cards.
We also had books, and we still do.
Just yesterday, on a bus, among a sea of people on their smartphones and a kid with a tablet, I saw a young lady reading a book.
Some people still watch TV in the mornings and evenings, during breakfast and dinner.
Reading the paper is probably what’s mostly been replaced by smartphones.
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My parents kept Easyrider Magazine on the back of the toilet since my mom worked there (accounting or collections or something). Sure as a teen you’re a horn ball, but since it had been there for most of my life boobs kinda didn’t hold the magic (kinda).
Edit for clarification: it was mostly a biker lifestyle magazine. It had pictures of boobs but it was mostly about Harleys and biking.
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Personally, I always used to carry a paperback with me and would read in the odd moments that this writer seems to recall as being so dull and soul destroying. I still do carry e-books on my phone of course and use them in exactly the same way - but also with the option of doomscrolling, of course.
As for TV, I was never one for TV - or radio - as background noise. With fiends, I had a bit of reputation of going round and turning such things off when I entered the room, so that we could talk without distraction. I would ask them first, of course.
