Mindfulness versus doing nothing in the olden days

[Platypusdiver]

Before smart phones, if we had nothing to do, we did nothing. Maybe read a book/newspaper or idle chat. But often we did literally nothing during many parts of the day.

I was wondering if we were getting the benefits of mindfulness just through everyday life. Or alternatively now, our brains are constantly working because we have unlimited distractions, and this is causing alot of mental health issues.

If I am not careful, my entire day is filled by distractions. Listening to podcasts when getting ready and driving to work, scrolling when waiting, reading the internet instead of even watching TV.

Before smart phones, if we had nothing to do, we did nothing. Maybe read a book/newspaper or idle chat. But often we did literally nothing during many parts of the day.

I think we rarely did literally 'nothing'. As in, sit on the sofa staring ahead nothing.

I agree we did different things and it's a knack/habit we are losing.

I was well into adulthood before smartphones, and I don’t think we ‘did nothing’ for large parts of the average day at all. I certainly didn’t, anyway. I think people on average did more ‘things’, if anything.

I agree I think we did more physical things back then.

Plus I remember speaking to friends on the house phone for hours, and my mum having a go at me because I'd be meeting up with them a few hours later 🤣

I don’t know anyone who did … nothing , at least not for any considerable amount of time. Even my farming grandma who could’ve definitely done with some peace and quiet , I never saw her just sit and be.

As for distractions, reading, telly, radio, knitting, crocheting, cross stitch (either for pleasure or need), newspapers, doing crosswords , random made up jobs (like sorting newspaper clippings)etc.

I think this is why colouring books and craft kit things are popular? DH and I do crosswords and are trying to teach ourselves cryptic ones (not very successfully so far!)
Very often I’ll sit on the bus and consciously remove headphones / put phone in bag and just watch.
We also find that we need to consciously watch tv - even very good dramas (Dept Q!) we find we are scrolling at the same time, then 5 mins pass and we have to rewind…

I've been thinking about this. People are constantly 'on' and distracted. I notice even at the lights when driving most people are on their phones. It's a problem and will get worse. Think about how now if you are waiting to meet someone, after less than a minute you're inclined to take out your phone.

I think it was more around ‘waiting’. If we were waiting for a bus, we’d just sit and wait. If we were waiting for someone to arrive at a coffee shop, we’d just sit. No phones to scroll.
Men sitting on toilets for hours (why do they do this?!) could only read the back of the shampoo bottle not spend hours scrolling.

But mindfulness isn’t “doing nothing”, it’s paying attention to what you are doing.

And, maybe I’m in the minority, but we don’t tend to overly multitask in my family. I don’t recognise what other posters are saying about scrolling phone while watching TV, checking phone while driving etc.

I remember my parents in the 1970’s and 1980’s never stopping, other than for meals and coffee/cake every afternoon. If they weren’t at work they were gardening (they grew a lot of our vegetables), doing DIY stuff, tinkering with the car, doing laundry, cooking, making bread etc. My Dad may have watched a bit of TV in the evening but was otherwise always on the go, my Mum had a plentiful supply of socks and tights that needed darning. They seemed very content with their lives, which were much easier than previous generations, but the idea of idle time didn’t really feature.

There was a lot more to do. People shopped and cooked more. Tasks were more manual, more posting of letters. There was more to do in every day life.

I always brought a book everywhere. Especially as, before mobiles, someone running late had no means of letting the person they were meeting know they were running late once both were away from landlines, so waits were less predictable. I still do, actually, but now my Kindle means that I have hundreds of books in my bag all the time.

Men sitting on toilets traditionally read the paper. There was also a vogue for ‘toilet books’.

Yes, I see that on here a lot — references to people watching tv while also on their phones.

I've noticed that in recent years I'll be on the train and other people (and their kids) aren't doing what I've always done, which is to look out of the window as we go along. They sit there with endless gadgets, screens, phones and headphones. They're not living in the moment and experiencing life as it passes by the window. They are totally immersed in whatever the heck is on those screens. It really isn't healthy imo.

I have to say I adore looking out train windows. But only if I’m facing the right way. If the train is crowded and I have to have my back to the engine, I get motion sickness watching the countryside slide past ‘backwards’, so will keep my eyes firmly on my book or Kindle.

I have always had a complete horror of doing nothing. Pre smartphones always had multiple books and magazines in my car, bag etc, just in case. Now I have multiple books downloaded on my phone, read the news magazines, articles etc. I may look "immersed in my screen "to judgey people but I am just doing exactly what I have always done.

I think the quiet times in our heads when waiting for buses, or walking into town or whatever have been lost.
These days people scroll on phones or listen to podcasts, instead of just 'being'.

It was also called “putting your feet up for a bit”

I was the same. As a child I woukd read while eating dinner! I think the issue now is reading is much more different than scrolling. I don't read anymore. I don't know why but scrolling is different and it's worse

DH is a very calm and patient man, who isn’t phased by much. But he will roll his eyes at people ‘not doing the window right’!

But before the internet, mobile banking, shopping online, there was so much more to do, you had to go to the post office a lot, well adults did, you had to pay bills by post or in person.

Everything you ate or wore, was a shopping trip out.

People used to watch whatever was on tv together and talk, or ignore it.

Now the internet has been monopolised to steal your time and a handful of people make a lot of money out of that. Your data, and how they can market to you to buy buy buy, is so sophisticated now.

And on top of all this you are persuaded to "do nothing" for mindfulness. Because that is all part of being a whole, perfect human being. It's insanity.

I used to listen to albums from start to finish of artists I liked, happily lie on my teenage bed to do it, it used to be a body of music that was put together in a particular order on purpose. That has been lost.

I would read, do homework, which was all out of books nothing online, run errands because there was always something, there were many more outdoor spaces to explore and hang out.

Walk to friend's houses, thinking about it, 3 miles away easy.

When comparing like-for-like if you try for a month say, to remove the internet from your life (work excluded) and let's accept bills that are already paid by DD can stay as they are.

But everything else, so to check your bank balance you need to find a cash point or branch, use just phone calls on your mobile to keep in touch and arrange things with people, no online shopping, no research online, no looking at tv schedules, pay in cash. Buy a newspaper or watch the news to keep informed, or radio. If you removed online for a month and did everything "how it used to be done" I very much doubt many people would be naval gazing about mindfulness and wellness.

Pre mechanisation many household chores took a lot longer to do. My grandparents lived in a house with no central heating and no bathroom. (This was from when they married in the 1920s until they went into sheltered housing in the late 1980s).
First job of the morning was to take down the chamber pots from underneath the beds and flush away the contents.
Then clean the grates, lay a fire and get it burning (otherwise the hot water was limited to the electric immersion). Coal and kindling was kept in the yard.
Coal fires also make a lot of dust so cleaning was a big job.
Grandparents did their own garden without the use of electric lawnmowers strimmers etc and they also kept an allotment.
If you wanted a bath you had to bring it in from the hooks in the yard. Boil pans of water and strip off in the back room and bathe. Then empty it afterwards using pans
Gran worked in various factory jobs and grandad was a labourer.
I don't think that they had time for just thinking. In fact when they moved into sheltered housing grandad thought they had "gone soft".!

Before smartphones I watched more tv, played more games on the laptop, listened to music on an iPod or further back Walkman/ diskman, read books instead of the kindle app and did puzzles in a puzzle book instead of on my phone.

I should actually be washing out my floors but here I am taking yet another break and scrolling. I think I did far more before having smart phones rather than just sitting doing nothing. I also read books, lots and lots of books but I honestly can hardly remember the last time I picked up a book.

Now the internet has been monopolised to steal your time and a handful of people make a lot of money out of that.

This. I think we are at our most dissatisfied because that internet is designed to make us so.

People say they haven't got time for whatever with their very busy modern lives but what exactly is it that makes lives busier now than they were in years gone by; when we can do so many tasks with the click of a button and with all the gadgets we can have delivered the same day to save us time? How much of our time is spent scrolling now?

I'm as guilty as the next person of spending longer than I need to on a screen but I really do notice the difference to my mood when I switch it off and go and do something productive.

The internet saves us time (remember having to phone or physically go somewhere to book or find out opening hours or basic information, or travel to a physical shop to buy something, or look up a recipe book or paper timetable?) so we give it to the internet.