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Ask HN: What did people do when they were bored, before Internet came?
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Re: Ask HN: What did people do when they were bored, before Internet came?
#2Let's ask people in parts of africa who don't have access to internet to this day?
I think there is more depth to your question than one might think. What does it mean to be bored? How far into the past are you interested to, cavemen or industrial revolution? What about contemporary people (not just in africa) who don't have internet access?
Re: Ask HN: What did people do when they were bored, before Internet came?
#3Here are the things I used to do when I was bored, before the internet existed, as far as I can recall:
- Phone a friend and chat
- Phone a friend and go for coffee, a walk, a drive, or just hang out at theirs or mine
- Phone a couple friends (one at a time) and arrange to (depending on time of day and schedule) go clubbing together, pubbing, to an event, etc
- Go alone for a walk (usually along the ocean), or into town, or to one of my 'third places' to hopefully run into friends
- Watch TV. This left one with a sad, unsatisfying feeling if a session went on too long: the TV studios geared their writing to the LCD. This is absolutely why MTV was so hugely popular before the net.
- Go shopping, or window-shopping (famously, to some people, 'the mall' was a 'third place'). Ideally, some non-chain store (eg: a specialty book store with foreign/obscure books and magazines)
- Play/practise a musical instrument
- Skateboard (something I have not done for aeons now)
- Rent, or rewatch, a VHS tape/DVD of a movie
- Read a book, a magazine, or a newspaper
- Start some mini-project (anything from laundry, to creative writing, to tending to a business card collection, to making a tee shirt)
- Write letters to friends who had moved away (long distance phone calls were expensive)
- Relax with a cup of tea, smoke cigarettes and listen to music. Often while doing this I would re-read my favorite books; easy to browse ones, like art books, old photos etc.
- Oh, and program my computer! Just... making programs without a whole lot of collaborative features, obviously.
Re: Ask HN: What did people do when they were bored, before Internet came?
#4Let's ask people in parts of africa who don't have access to internet to this day? I think there is more depth to your question than one might think. What does it mean to be bored? How far into the past are you interested to, cavemen or industrial revolution? What about contemporary people (not just in africa) who don't have internet access?
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Re: Ask HN: What did people do when they were bored, before Internet came?
#5... TV
Re: Ask HN: What did people do when they were bored, before Internet came?
#6Here are the things I used to do when I was bored, before the internet existed, as far as I can recall: - Phone a friend and chat - Phone a friend and go for coffee, a walk, a drive, or just hang out at theirs or mine - Phone a couple friends (one at a time) and arrange to (depending on time of day and schedule) go clubbing together, pubbing, to an event, etc - Go alone for a walk (usually along the ocean), or into t…
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Re: Ask HN: What did people do when they were bored, before Internet came?
#7Let's ask people in parts of africa who don't have access to internet to this day? I think there is more depth to your question than one might think. What does it mean to be bored? How far into the past are you interested to, cavemen or industrial revolution? What about contemporary people (not just in africa) who don't have internet access?
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Re: Ask HN: What did people do when they were bored, before Internet came?
#8Invented things --- like punk music -- according to the author Mark Fisher:
"... to the detriment of innovation, boredom itself has been has been radically transformed by the advent of digital media. Today the slightest hint of restlessness or pocket of spare time tends to have us reaching for our smartphones -- and yet the possiblity of real boredom, and the urgent desire to escape it, has historically acted as an important cultural catalyst. For punks in the 1970s, the "dreary void of Sundays, the night hours after television stopped broadcasting, even the endless dragging minutes spent waiting in queues or for public transport" were viewed as a "challenge, an injunction and an opportunity". Nowadays, "in the intensive 24/7 environment of capitalist cyberspace, the brain is no longer allowed any time to idle; instead, it is inundated with a seamless flow of low-level stimulus". In compulsively engaging with frivolous online content that we recognize -- even celebrate -- as tedious, we sorely limit ourselves. We have arrived at a situation in which "no one is bored, everything is boring" ..."
From Hauntings by Tom Graham, a review of K-PUNK by Mark Fisher, in TLS, May 24, 2019, p. 32
Re: Ask HN: What did people do when they were bored, before Internet came?
#9Best advice I can offer, is disconnect for 24 to 48 hours and find out for yourself..
This is the sort of question a young person asks, with the greatest of respect, so I recommend spending time with older generations and learn from mentors who will gladly guide and advice based on their decades of life and experience "living" an actual "live".
Re: Ask HN: What did people do when they were bored, before Internet came?
#10Here are the things I used to do when I was bored, before the internet existed, as far as I can recall: - Phone a friend and chat - Phone a friend and go for coffee, a walk, a drive, or just hang out at theirs or mine - Phone a couple friends (one at a time) and arrange to (depending on time of day and schedule) go clubbing together, pubbing, to an event, etc - Go alone for a walk (usually along the ocean), or into t…
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