I keep cutting out things like social media from my lifestyle, but I’m finding it hard to fill the time. Reading can only go so far, there’s never anything on TV, and my friends all live twelve miles away.
So, before we really had social media, what did teenagers do?
- reading
- TV / movies
- video games
- listening to music (it’s important to remember that this was an active thing to do … you’d listen to an album beginning to end, digest it, read about it etc)
- playing music
- Hanging out with friends, either doing some of the above or going here and there on pushbikes.
Not gonna lie, I honestly think it was overall better. If the internet were just Wikipedia, blogs and casual non-profit social media, the world would be a better place.
I was reading more and spending time creating (drawing and making animated shirts in Flash!)
Getting a time consuming hobby like wood working or programming or something that can pay off in the long run is I think probably a wise route to go.
@hellfire103@sopuli.xyz this right here. Try lots of things & find what you are interested in. If you are still a teen yourself I’d highly recommending finding a local 4-H club, they’re a great place to learn a new hobby with others and from experienced folks who want to share.
Went to the malt shop, swing danced, bet on the ponies.
OK Boomer
I certainly did a lot more fishing back then.
so the “obvious” thing that’s doable even when solo is just “hobbies”. music making, game making, pottery if you can get ahold of (someone with) a kiln, drawing, etc.
but on the non-creative side (because let’s be honest as a teen you’re often too mentally exhausted from school for those), hop on a bike, choose a direction, and find all the weird treasures on the outskirts of town. plenty of “weird things in the desert” and all that — but people take that trope too literally to notice that it’s really “weird things in the places people don’t frequent”: last week i stumbled across a few pallets of bees staged off a gravel road 5mi from my home. dunno if they’re being transported, brought in for pollination, or what, but it was a fun find all the same.
Read comics, ride bike, play game boy
I mean the thing that still trips me up the most is that social media and phones still takes away from other tech stuff that I’d enjoy doing more. When I was younger I used to play a lot of Game Boy Advance and then later PSP. Once I got a phone it became just that little bit more difficult to focus on just enjoying playing games!
Basically getting sweaty, and challenging yourself…
- tromping around in the woods,
- riding a bike,
- swimming at a pool/creek,
- playing sports (and especially inventing new sports).
Being strong and tough for its own sake.
Listened to CDs, smoked a lot, stared at the walls, cried when appropriate. But then I’m an Xer, so…
Library (it was fun spotting a book I haven’t read yet), comics (waiting for salles so I could get a bulk of them for cheap), rollerblade (until you discover that the road is bad and the poor wheels just can’t handle it), table top wargames (fun putting models together and doing pew pew sounds one a month with friends). DnD was also occasionally thrown in, but without proper DM the stories are just terrible and teens be doing rather immature things.
@hellfire103@sopuli.xyz if your friends are 12 miles away your local board game store is probably that far too, but most shops have regular game days welcoming players of all ages.
same things i do now 🤷♀️
@hellfire103 Probably none of the things I would do today, but were fun back then while I was a kid.
We were a group of kids of various similar ages who would play various games outside, among which I can still recall:
- hide&seek
- leapsha (I don’t know how to translate this in English, but basically you would all run away from another person, and if that person would touch you and say you are!, you would be the one everyone would run away from)
- 1,2,3, stand at the wall (where one of you would stand at a wall and say the phrase, then turn around. The others would try to get to you, but if you happen to see someone moving, you’d tell that person and they would need to get back to the starting point)
- country, country we want recruits (I know it might sound wrong to some of you, but it’s really fun. You split into two groups, then hold each other tight in a line. One of the group shouts Country, country, we want recruits!. The other replies who? and the first one replies with the name of someone in the second group. Then, the person called runs towards the group who was calling, between two of its members. If these persons manage to stop the runner, then the runner will join their group. If they do not, the runner returns to the original group. The side who gets only one person left, naturally, loses)
- “Lapte gros” or “thick milk” (I don’t quite know the rules by heart myself, but you can read an explainer and see a video here - I never really played it myself, so my limbs are pretty much intact)
Then I was also watching a lot on Cartoon Network, we had cartoons like Ed, Edd & Eddy, Life with Louie, Scooby Doo, The Cramp Twins, Tom&Jerry, Looney Tunes etc.
Then some of my friends had bikes and we would compete against each other on a few streets around my neighborhood (that’s how I know that place so well I don’t even need a map to get around, lol).
I still ride my bike sometimes, but now I live at the top of a 10-floor building and it’s really inconvenient for me to get my bike up&down all the time (I cannot get it into the elevator either). So I mostly prefer to get outside and walk.
Indeed, for a teenager like you seem to be, it would be more fun to hang around with some friends, so why not just bring them over and play something 😁 Edit: you can also buy a ball if you can find one at a store.
Just make sure you don’t trash your house or something, haha.
Play safe!
Leapsha in the US is called “Tag”
1,2,3 Stand at the Wall would be “Red Light Green Light”
Country Country would be “Red Rover” here in the US
Thick Milk? Never played anything like that as a kid. Sounds dangerously fun
Mostly video games, sports and chatting via Skype (both voice and text). Also image boards. Occasionally read a book. At least from a Zillenial perspective, it was not so different from now.
not so much skype, but the number of hours i spent on AOL Instant messenger (AIM) and later MSN Messenger. Trillian became a life saver when I started dating a weird Yahoo! chick.
Messenger was the only reason I had a hotmail account, and mostly just because the cute girls from school used MSN and not AIM. After Microsoft bought Skype the combined the two services and your Hotmail account was also usable as a skype handle (complete with @hotmail.com at the end) to this day I list that as my skype handle when potential employers ask for it, and I’ve often had recruiters tell me they think I put my email in the wrong field and I have to tell them they are incorrect. I hadn’t actually used that account in like 10 years, until Edge made it advantageous to do so for some of their features and now I probably use that account more than my Gmail.
Reading. Really. I was a huge book worm. I could have stood to have spent more time with friends, though. And I wish that I had figured out earlier that I was gay (aka not been in denial) and started dating.
Video games are fun, but I’m kind of garbage at them so that makes them less enjoyable. Phones didn’t really change entertainment that much. I use them as a more convenient music, audiobook, and podcast player. Most of my social media is Reddit and Lemmy, and those don’t lend themselves to virtual keyboards.
