If you were a teenager, what would you be doing now?

[Noonelikesasloppytrifle]

My 16 year old DD is currently sat in her room on her phone and my 14 year old DS is badgering to go on his console. Everyday is a battle to get them off technology. At their age, that wasn't an option for me. I would have generally been reading, watching a bit of TV, hanging out with friends maybe doing some crafty stuff. Technology seems to have robbed them of other (unstructured) interests.

If you were a teen, what would you have been doing on a lazy Saturday afternoon? I want to offer alternative suggestions!

14yo DS is busy annoying his sister (and everyone else) by nudging his empty water bottle at her. He's breaking this entertainment up by chanting Kung Fu Panda and falling off his suitcase.

probablt would have been playing something on my PlayStation or creating a geocities website or playing on Habbo or neopets!

Tidying my room, meeting friends or getting ready to meet friends, playing rugby with my younger brother, listening to music and reading magazines.

Although at 16 I also had a weekend job washing dishes in a nursing home until 2pm on Saturday and Sunday.

Reading, embroidery, sewing

no, I wasn’t a teenager in the victorian era, I was just a quiet child who enjoyed those kind of pursuits.

Pre 16: TV or computer (MSN or The Sims, good times). Post 16: I'd have worked a shift in a supermarket and then be getting ready with friends to go out, Saturday night and all.

singing and ringing for church weddings (this time of year they'd often fit 5 or 6 in a day)

otherwise reading, probably instead of doing practice or while my mother thought I was tidying my bedroom...

I would have been watching TV, maybe with or without my parents, or having a long chat with a friend on our landline. Or working in a horribly expensive boutique that hardly anyone visited as a part time job...

My 13 year old hangs out with a group of friends after school most days for about an hour/hour and a half. As it is lighter in the evenings now she has had a curfew of 7pm but has never returned later than 6pm. She doesn’t often do things on a weekend.

I have been asking her if she has plans to see friends and while she wants to see them and has tried to arrange to meet up in town/bowling/trampoline park/local park/our house she has struggled to find any friends to commit to plans. She has seen friends once in town for a few hours.

I work term time and as she has older siblings who no longer live at home I have told her that if I need to ferry her and her friends around them I am willing to (I dropped them to and from town, it is a short easy busy ride but one of the friends are not allowed to take the bus). I worry about her being bored but even though she is frustrated at the lack of plans she seems happy to hang out at home.

I have discovered that in her (large) group Of friends that there are a number of reasons why they don’t meet up more.

• lack of money for activities, the children either don’t get regular money to enable them to budget some for activities or the parents will not/can not afford to pay for activities.
• children not trusted to go out to town, parents think the will get lost on the bus or get bundled into the back of a van (we don’t live in a place known for this!)
• parents just say no, no reason given just depends on their mood (a couple of friends only ask for money/to go out if parents are in a good mood)
• need to stay home as they have siblings (maybe they will be jealous or they entertain them?)
• transport to and from places… I can fit 4 passengers in my car and have offered lifts, both ways if needed.

When DD does get to town or somewhere she always comments on her friends reluctance to speak to anyone who they don’t know, they struggle with transactions at tills and my DD seems to be the one who will order for everyone at mc Donald’s or the milkshake place and her friends always comment on how she does it so easily. I am unsure if this is a gap in their social skills as a hang over from Covid where there were little opportunities to go out independently and learn these skills or parents not encouraging them to be independent for whatever reason.

We used to get the bus into the city with friends and browse the record shops and clothes markets. Have a snack at the food court.

Actually at 16 I had a Saturday job at the co op so the bus trips had given way to stacking biscuits 😂

Doing a paper round (which needed a trolley on Sundays with the big papers), spending the proceeds on Reebok Classic trainers, and wearing them without socks, as lots of us did in summer in the 1990s.

I don't think what people would have been doing thirty years ago is really relevant - if they'd had access to all the technology kids do now, they'd probably have been using it too!

The teens around here seem to hang out in town or by the beach, go to McDonald's, make TikToks, hang out at each others houses, play sports, play video games and just generally chill out. I see lots of them on bikes riding about too.

I would have been reading or hanging out in town or at home/a friend's house.

My DC generally spend around half their time sleeping and then gaming, spending all day in pyjamas, and half doing more traditional active stuff like cycling 10 miles to meet up with friends, or going swimming, or making a film, or cooking or sewing, or mooching around town.

On a Saturday I'd have been in town with friends drowning myself in dewberry or white musk tester spray from the body shop, browsing bay trading and our price and HMV. Shoplifting heather shimmer lipstick from boots and pick and mix from woolworths, eating McDonald's or Wimpy and smoking the whole time.

Probably dying of boredom.

Thank god for the Internet.

Me too. I was a teen in the 00s and we used tech loads, I was constantly on MSN messenger chatting.

From about age 14, I would have been:

Getting ready for work
Doing homework
Going out with friends
Practicing for a drama production or sport
Going to a track & field meet
Reading
Writing angsty poetry
Cinema
Babysitting my siblings
Watching TV
Chatting on the phone
Mucking about online (I was partial to MOO and MUD chatboards in the mid-90s, dial-up screech and all)
Feeling bored
Riding my bike or rollerskating
Swimming

In town with friends, playing video games either alone or with friends or working a Saturday job. Sometimes at home there would be a big puzzle on the table or we would play monopoly.

Saturday mornings were spent watching SMTV live followed by CDUK from 9-12.30.

Both my parents worked. We had chores to do. Washing, hoovering, cooking, go to the shop. Most of this was done in the morning, apart for the cooking. I’d go see my friend and hang out with her. She had the latest of everything, toys, gadgets, music. She was happy to have me round. I’d go home via the gorgeous friendly cat and then go prep and cook dinner with my db.
If we went on holiday we’d go to my parents home country where we had relatives. These were the only holidays we’d go on.

I would have been reading, watching TV, listening to music. Not else to do growing up in middle of the countryside with no public transport miles from next town or friends. DD is off and about every day, getting bus into town to meet friends from school or activities she does, goes to the beach, has done a drama camp and currently in Europe with a group from another activity

At 14 I'd probably have been at a country fayre with my siblings and parents. It would have involved watching morris dancing and having to choose between a drink and an ice cream. Id probably be keen to get back to my commodore 64.

At 16 I'd be having the time off my life - at the beach with friends probably and then a pub or house party in the evening.

Weekends i would be sailing and or rowing, hanging out with friends. Luckily growing up there were no video games or the internet.
Always out til dark and beyond, couldn't think of anything worse than sitting in my bedroom with my parents downstairs, sounds utterly miserable.

Early teens.
Watching Swap Shop or Tiswas. Doing my homework. Cycling around the housing estate to my friends house. Reading.

Mid teens.
Going up to the back fields
Babysitting
Catching the bus into Bristol and meeting my friends outside Chelsea Girl.
Volunteering and doing my Duke of Edinburgh award.

Late teens
Going to the pub.
Recovery from pub.
Driving out with friends
Going on the back of boyfriend's motorbike for a ride out with other bikers to places like Cheddar Gorge or Weston-super-Mare.

I'd have been laying in bed with a hangover, it's Sunday

Working, or if I was a younger teen I only worked evenings (babysitting) so I would probably have been looking after my siblings while my mother went shopping.