Give me a list of things that people used to do before smartphones and technology!

[KnittingForMittens]

I am just curious to think what we all did before smartphone invention? I remember I used to do my school homework on paper, watch DVDs all night during the weekend, go out and visit my friends, other endless things.... what about you? Your mother? Your grandma? Etc.

Ring people up and chat for hours.

Conversation, productivity...,

Read newspapers daily, watch the news on tv.

I remember doing some A level homework on my computer in about 1989 and printing it out on a dot matrix printer (which was shit and missed out the middle dot on all the e's so they looked like c's . I had to fill them all in with a pen ). I thought I was the dog's bollocks when I handed it in

Yes when you went to work you worked.

@MrsPear this! The amount of times I walk into the ladies and I see one of my colleagues sitting on the bench using her phone.

@Rockbird that sounds wicked

Smoked. Keeps the hands busy and gives 5 minutes of distraction. The smoking ban in pubs came in around the same time that smartphones started taking off. I think smartphones have helped declining rates of smoking.

Read magazines.
Crosswords, sudouko
Used a watch, although fitness wearables have caused a regrowth in watch use.
Write letters. I wrote letters through my teenage years and into university around the millenium.

Meeting friends and 'hanging out'
Watching and looking forward to TV shows and calling friends on the landline to discuss them.
Reading magazines
Hour long trips to Blockbuster
Sitting in park watching world go by
Saturday trips to local cinema complex
Attending local discos/events

Jigsaws

We used to spend hours when on holiday at the caravan playing card games either on our own or as a family. We used to make card games up with ridiculously complicated rules but we remembered them and the games worked!

I actually taught my dc how to play some of them and actually still find it hilarious. Even if they lose they're absolutely fine with it and wanting to play again.

I used to actually watch the TV and be able to concentrate on it rather than it just being on in the background. Now I can hardly get through half an hour without getting bored and switching off.

I used to read books. I haven't read a book for years.

Just yesterday a guy in a car asked me for directions, saying his satnav was broken. He was a good seventy miles from where he needed to be, he was completely clueless without a voice telling him where to go.

Board games
Bike rides
Comics
Teletext
Marbles
Walks
Park visits
Radio and playing cassettes
Atari console and Spectrum 128 games
Handheld Nintendo game & watch games

I used to read books, lots and lots of books.
Knitting / crochet / cross-stitch.
My mother knitted and sewed, she made many of my clothes.
My nan knitted and was also into gardening.

And - very novel - we had conversations. Even with strangers at a bust stop or on the train.

Ah yes, teletext, I used to fritter hours away on that.

shops were closed on Sundays, Saturdays after 14:00, Thursday afternoons, often between 13-15 and certainly after 18:00 - so shopping even for food was an event
sport (the fittness type for ordinary people)
reading books and papers
board and card games
family gatherings
walks (for fun and to get somewhere)
meeting friends in person
TV was scheduled - no repeats you either were there or you missed it
more sleep
handwritten homework
getting information from libraries

Actually watched telly rather than read Mumsnet on the phone and listened to it in the background.

As a veterinary nurse, when I was on call over the weekend, I had to take everything including all food and drink, and stay in the flat above the practice, to answer the emergency line and be on hand! No leaving the flat at all!

Smoke!!

If I had to go into a pub on my own to meet friends I'd light a cigarette so that I had something to do with my hands.

Now I play on my phone instead!!

In the 70s when I was a teen, we talked to each other a lot more, went to the pub, parks, other people’s homes and talked.
Read books, played cards and board games, watched tv, went to the cinema. Knew stuff without google, remembered information.
Currently my phone screen is wobbly, one of the youngsters at work asked me how I coped with it. I don’t live through my phone like that, so it’s not really a problem.

Ahhh Teletext! I used to like the weekly letters page.

Loads of great memories on this thread.

I remember racing home from school to watch Wimbledon and focusing on every strike of the ball, rather than half-watching it whilst Mumsnetting!

we had conversations. Even with strangers at a bust stop or on the train.

I've always used books or magazines to avoid that.

These days, I have conversations with strangers over MN.

I didn't have a mobile phone until about 1998 ( I was 28 then and had resisted getting one for quite a while as didn't see the point)

Before smart phones existed I used to buy a newspaper every morning to read on the train. Would do the daily crossword and sudoku puzzle at lunchtime. There would be a few of us all trying to solve the same ones so we'd all be helping each other.

I'd use the landline at work to phone my friends or to let my mum and eventually husband know that I was leaving the office and which train I'd be on. We used to have an honesty box come round once a week so we could contribute towards personal phone calls.

Phone box were used to call and ask parents/husband for lifts home from places. If the trains were messed up there would be a massive queue to use the pay phones.

I always had a book to read on the journey home.

Evenings would be spent cooking the dinner and then a couple of hours of watching TV. DH and I joined a gym because he hated watching Eastenders etc and suggested we should get out of the house and do something else instead.

One thing I loved was going to friends for a TV evening. If there was a special double episode of Friends or a special event being televised we would get food and wine and all get together to watch it.

We made much more effort to see people before smart phones/Facebook came along.

Booking holidays was completely different obviously. You just had to trust that the hotel you had booked would be ok as you would have no access to reviews.

Booking weekends away in the Uk Involved phoning the tourist information office for the town you wanted to visit to ask them to post you a list of hotels , guest houses/ bed and breakfasts. You then phoned the one you liked the sound of from the very short description. Sometimes you had to post a cheque to them to secure your booking.

Feeling all nostalgic for simpler times now!

Use a dictionary to check spelling, I used to have one in my school/college bag

Arrange to meet your friends at a place, at a time and turn up at that place at that time. No way of telling them that you are running late!

Encyclopaedia and library for information.