Were things really boring in the 80s?

[Egyptiancottonhouse]

I was born in the 80s, grew up in the 90s but it's difficult to imagine now how things were.

I'm watching reruns of Brookside from 82 I think.

It's very nostalgic but things must have been so boring, although people didn't know any different. I don't think most of us today would cope without the Internet, TV on demand, online shopping, social media.

Being able to research anything you want in a second, look up a recipe, look at a map and street view.

The Internet really has changed our lives beyond recognition.

There was a lot more innocence in the 80s. I remember my 13th birthday, watching some boys up the road playing cricket on the road outside, a group of my friends talking about 'Sweet Valley High' books (confess I never read them), a bbq and cake.
Then there was the fun of buying Smash Hits and learning the lyrics to favourite songs or taking out the pictures of the bands we had crushes on. Taping the top 40 on a Sunday and trying to pause it before the adverts.
Before school was the time for Macdonalds hot chocolate with marshmallows, after school was for hanging out with other friends with no worries about getting stabbed, having things stolen etc
Weekends and school holidays were spent meeting up with friends and hanging out in town or at the beach playing in the arcades and attempting to flirt with older boys. We'd shop for records or clothes ...or magazines...Just 17/More/Cosmo (which developed into Raw/Metal Hammer/Kerrang).
There was a lot less secrecy ...and privacy in a way. Obviously no mobiles so had to use the family phone which was somewhere pretty central so anyone could listen in to your conversation. For more private calls you had to collect up your 10ps and head to the nearest phone box.
We were overall much more sociable and far less materialistic than many teenagers today.

I remember getting a ZX82 computer for the TV and that was more advanced than the tennis computer game.

yuppies with their Filofax at the end of the 80s

spent a little of time in the pub, meeting friends, going to night clubs. Sundays were for chilling out at a mates

pubs closed at 3pm and opened again at 7, closed at 10.30

My life was quite interesting and fun in the 1980s. I moved to London in 1983 from a town in Suffolk. Me and my first partner bought the old BBC style computer and,an Astrad one which was very exciting for its time. We would laugh at it now though!

I would type up dissertations for students to present their degree work. I also knew some really interesting people over those years as the first partner was very sociable. Never a dull moment. He bought the original style mobile which was really heavy and more like a brick when they first came out! I also played piano on a Steinway baby grand. I was in my twenties and things were fun.

80’s were great times, great music, people spoke to each other, yes didn’t have mobiles, WhatsApp texts, you picked up the phone landline phone, and chatting whilst dad was pointing to his watch to say you have been on too long 😂 we honestly didn’t know any different the internet wasn’t around but you had telephone books, yellow pages to find whatever you needed. Libraries. I was always wearing my roller boots, I loved them. Ra-ra skirts. Permed hair was all the rage, or lady di (as she was then haircuts) life was simpler, and much better IMHO without SM, it’s put way too much pressure on young people. More independent stores that closed Wednesday afternoons and Sundays. Their were Texas (DIY stores) that opened on a Sunday, so I can remember parents going to them, MFI (flat pack furniture) stores, Woolworths, we’re you could buy records to baby wear and everything in between including pick and mix. Dinner dances and cabaret were popular. Wimpy bars for hamburgers. No cable or sky, 3 channels til channel 4 launched, and that was only on a few hours a day. Soaps were really popular, Corrie, EE, crossroads, neighbours, home & away. I was out most of the time with my friends so it didn’t matter. Especially when we got a VHS video to record and go to the video shop to pick a film. Great times, would go back in a heartbeat and do it all again.

Yes the internet has changed everything.

But that doesn't mean it was "boring" before that

I had a whale of a time. And with no camera phones and social media, there was no record of what we got up to, nor the same pressures to conform/look good etc. We just did it.

If we needed info we'd look it up, or look up a phone number and make enquiries by talking to someone. And if you stumbled across something you thought might be useful in future you made a note of it (mentally or literally) rather than just assuming you'll search for it again.

Whole different way of thinking and doing and interacting.

Political activism was actually active, not clicks, for example

Playing out, actual libraries, municipal swimming pools, the fashion. No it wasn't boring.

Everyone on their phones and expecting everything instantly is boring imo (although I'm fully guilty of this.)

Being bored isn't a bad thing anyway. I think it's much healthier.

TV is the worst now it has ever been, loads of streaming services and channels but most of the new content is rubbish. For me, TV was good in the 70s to 90s but we had the video shops from the 80s and I found far more at these than the channels of today. Best telly of all though was the 90s to about 2010, so many excellent series were made in this time, there were DVDs and streaming was just starting, everything has really gone downhill now with mainly rubbish new series being made. TV won't get back to the good old days now as the streamers are just in competition to see who can churn out the most cheap TV

This is moronic.

The internet has a lot to answer for. I was born in 81, so had childhood without it. By the time I was 14 in 1995 my sister and I spent all our time on the dial up internet Compuserve chat room being groomed. It's very easy to twat about wasting time online and without actually have to go to the effort of finding something to do.

Best decade ever !!

Films were so much better then. Blockbusters was the in thing. I lived very close to one and we would go and choose a film to hire then at the counter buy the offer of a bottle of pop and a bag of chocolates. You had about a week in which to watch the film then return it otherwise you got fined. You had to be a member to rent a film.
It might have been the 80s or 90s when videoplus came out. It made recording programmes so much easier as before then I could never quite manage to set the video recorder.
Towns had proper shops back then. Clothes shops, huge department stores, travel agents, shoe shops, grocery shops, butchers, fishmongers. Now it’s all nail bars and vape shops. Nobody had their nails done never mind lip fillers and Botox.
We only ate home cooked meals from scratch. There were fish and chip shops but we didn’t have these often. Everybody was thin, even people considered hugely fat were probably what you would call average today. Everybody did PE no excuses. We also spent hours playing out, running around but there was far less traffic and lots and lots of playing fields.
I used to climb trees with my cousins and we would hang upside down from branches swinging. We could all pull ourselves back up using our abdominal muscles, I bet most children and teens would struggle to do that now. I used to practice standing on my head at home to be better in gym class at school and all the girls could do handstands. The boys had to jump the horse in gym no excuses they had to get over it. It was just expected that you would be fit and active. At secondary school we did the cross country run on a regular basis. It was literally running through fields for a few miles I hated it but we had to do it. There were also play grounds with lots of equipment on concrete! Had many a cut and graze from being flung off the roundabout at speed. The older kids would start pushing us round faster and faster until we all flew off laughing and screaming.

Difficult to compare really. Yes there was less to do, but the things we did do took longer (because we didn't have the Internet to do it instantly) so there was less time with nothing to do.

Be interested to hear if others agree with two way I feel people overall have been affected by the Internet.

1. Still on the boredom theme, people have a lower tolerance of boredom these days. Say for example, a teenager sat on a bus for 30 mins wouldn't need something to do other than sit on the bus in the 80s, but a teenager today would find it boring today if they didn'thave their phone. (On average of course.)

2. I genuinely feel that the average person retains less information nowadays. Outside of school subjects and work knowledge that is. Because we don't have to as you can just look it up instantly again. Possibly add we generally remember fewer details too about said information. (I think it's proven that people taken in less when reading off screens than off paper.)

I stress that I mean on average for both above points. Of course today you get teenagers who could cope with a 20 min bus right without being bored and people who are brilliant to have on your quiz team because they recall so many small details!!

Got married, had 2 kids and bought our first flat (with £15k help from the government - ta very much!).

Currently in the process of house buying and wondering what all today's RightMove addicts would have thought about -gasp- having to actually go to an estate agent and talk to them to see what properties were available, coming away with some badly photocopied A4 sheets with minimal pictures and having no real clues about location (no street view in those days!)

EAs would post you big bundles of properties each week - most of which went straight in the bin, or were used to light the fire.

Meeting your mates was fun. You arranged a time and place. If you were late, they had to wait or just go on without you

Your mum didn't know where you were and if you wanted a lift, you found a call box. Or did three rings for come get me

@Daffodilwoman were they better, or was it the anticipation that made it better? I feel we looked forward to things. And there was jeopardy too - if you missed it you missed it! No catching up. You had to wait months for a video release. And months more for a TV release.

I was a child in the 80s. There were definitely some boring times. I had plenty of toys and loved reading but I do remember some Sunday mornings sitting looking at the test card on TV wishing something would come on.....

I was a teenager and young adult in the 80s and it was glorious!

We saw friends alot, wrote letters, at home used the only phone to ring each other, popped over to see each other.

When I left home I didn't have a phone so people would need to stick to plans, arrange dates at the end of the last ones, send cards through the mail.

We had a TV and VCR and it was so exciting renting a video with drinks and snacks. My ex and I used to spend all night just talking to each other sometimes with music on. We went to the cinema alot.

I was an 80s teenager. Apart from maths class at school, we were rarely bored, even though we lived in a small remote Scottish town. You had to seek out your own fun. We used to really look forward to our favourite TV and radio shows, we were in drama and art groups as well as a youth club, we loved fashion and music and meeting up with friends. Busy every night of the week! And we mixed with different age groups at some activities, we weren’t just round people of our own age in our own peer group.

Actually there were a couple of “fat” but more chubby kids in our class. The parents of one girl were really obese and sadly both died young.

Yes to rope or tyre etc swings. I went to a park we used to go to years ago as kids before a supermarket and other buildings were built with DB and he mentioned he used to play with the gypsy kids there (there was a gypsy camp there too) on a rope/tyre swing. I had no idea. I certainly didn’t do that!

Agreed with shops being shops, local high street had fishmongers, fruit and veg shops and bakeries for years. In the 80s a beauty salon did open up but probably mid to late 80s. The local high street had at least 6 independent hairdressers, from cheap and cheerful to more expensive and all specialising in highlights, perms and dye jobs for women and men. We had 2 pet shops and an old fashioned sweet shop with glass jars owned by a very old man.

Going to a local big high street (town) was a fairly big day or morning out involving buying gifts, material (John Lewis), collecting ordered books, unusual shops (loads of those around, hippyish types left over from 1980s) and then a cafe (unusual as vegetarian) to meet mum’s friend and her kids.

People met up more. Internet does reduce this.

The anticipation did make things seem more exciting.

Watching a film on a Saturday night felt like a big event. You'd have to be a member of the video shop, make your way there which potentially meant a good walk to the shop. Then you'd have to choose your video, hope they had it in stock, you'd buy your snacks. It might have been a film you'd been waiting ages to come out.

Of course you can still do all of that today, but you could watch 2 or 3 films in the time it took.

High streets did seem generally nicer places too. Although that could be rose tinted specs.

I still can't imagine life without all of the modern conveniences. Things have moved so rapidly in the last 20 years.

I was born mid 70s so grew up in the 80s. I done a lot of sports and most kids I knew had dance or sports classes most nights. We also went outside to play a lot. Less cars so ball games on streets were commonplace.

Omg yes, this!!!

I love all the tech we have today. When iPads first came out I remember talking to my BIL about them and laughing about what a strange idea it was to have a gadget that basically only surfed the internet. Then DP bought me one and I was glued to it. Still am (albeit a few new versions later) I love so many things about the digital world and how it has made life much easier and better.

But I would go back to the 80s in a heartbeat. I would go back to not being permanently available via my mobile phone. Yes, I can switch it off, but I always feel I need to make an excuse. I would go back to watching TV shows in a measured way, looking forward to them, instead of guzzling them all at once (which I cannot resist). I would go back to those quiet queues in the bank. And back to when people made arrangements and stuck to them, instead of backing out at the last minute via text. The 80s were fabulous. The best music (with the 1970s still so clear and present too) - the 90s were ok, but nothing like the mad, gender bending, colourful explosion that was the 80s.

I think we were all a bit more inventive and proactive when it came to entertainment. It's so easy to just wile away hours surfing the internet now. Certainly interesting but possibly less rewarding and stimulating.

I tell you what, I'm pretty sure Cherry Bakewells a had a whole cherry in the 80s too, instead of the half one on the tiny cake I just had! (Although I will concede that I was smaller, so maybe it just seemed bigger).

It sounds stupid because in theory it's easier to buy stuff today, but I remember my mum and dad wanting a new cooker, nipping to the gas showroom in town and having it delivered and installed almost immediately - no waiting weeks for something to be delivered from the manufacturer, no additional charges for connection. If you stuck the old one on the street, the bin men would take it away! Companies and councils today seem to think their job is to make everything as difficult as possible or charge through the nose for normal services that they used to do as part of your rates.