Do you ever wonder how people didn't die of boredom in the olden days

[AthenaisdeRochechouart]

Before telly and iPads and Netflix and access to unlimited books/music via Amazon?

What did they do to stop going stark staring mad? Could you cope long term without the above?

People always find ways to entertain themselves and even poor people would have leisure pursuits or entertainments, albeit suited to their time and income (or lack of).

My mum once told me she wove a big stripy rug during the first three months after she got married. There's nothing like newly wedded bliss!

My brain’s mangled by technology. Wish I could come off it.

What do you call 'the olden days' op?

They didn't time to get bored. Or for Netflix.

No ready meals, no take aways, fewer time saving household appliances, , clothes that needed ironing, or indeed making, walking a lot more because fewer people could afford to drive. It all takes time.

I need to stop wasting time online.

They were infinitely more accomplished than we are today.

A few things spring to mind :

Spending all day, three deep around the boundary in deck chairs at the local village cricket match.

Playing out all day at the local Rec building forts from tree branches and bracken.

Promenading in your best (only) clothes up and down the sea front

Are you a journalist, Op?

As pp have said, time to be bored is a luxury most didn't have. And if they did have free time, they would socialise, tell stories, children would play outside or with handmade toys.

But even in modern times, there's plenty to do without technology. I actually think that the constant availability of entertainment makes us less able to withstand boredom. Even when I was a kid, there were lono periods with no TV, only a few channels etc, and I could happily sit and read for hours. Now I find I get fidgety really quickly when I'm not constantly doing things, I find myself browsing the internet while watching TV, I can browe through hundreds of channels and still not find something that takes my fancy, and my attention span is shot to pieces.
Perhaps I need a technology ban...

I'm going to buck the trend here. I grew up in the days of three TV channels, none of them on all day, no video recording and certainly no streaming or unlimited books & DVDs. We had books but not that many - they were relatively expensive. And yes, I remember being bored quite a lot of the time. Where I grew up wasn't a paradise of children playing out all hours due to the major roads that had been slammed through. I knew my favourite books (A Little Princess, Charlotte Sometimes and all the Chalet School books I could get hold of) by heart because I read them so often, and the highlight of my week in junior school was Fridays when the comics (June, Tammy, Sandie and later Jinty) were published. Sundays could be very dull, and my parents used to get cross if we complained about being bored.

When I came across this video of Hancock's Half-Hour - The Bedsitter it really chimed for me - although it was made in the 50s, I so remember that feeling of trying to pass a boring Sunday afternoon. I wouldn't want to go back to it.

Weird I have feel you and need to do the same. I am sure I have an addiction.

I lived without tv for six years in the 90's/2000's. I read many, many books, saw friends a lot and spent quite some time doing sports. Looking back I felt more alive back then than now. I spent my days doing stuff that made me feel better. Watching tv doesn't make me feel better actually.

My Gransparents married in the 1930s and were farmers. One GF went to the pub, the other stayed at home in the evening. My GMs cooked, cleaned, had children, made clothes/jam/butter/bread and washed clothes by hand. Visitors did not come invited they just turned up.

Are you a journalist, OP?

No, I'm the Marquise of Montespan, obviously

I grew up in the 60's and 70's and I would say we didn't know any different. It's easy to say that we must've been bored, but I was a voracious reader and we used to sit down as a family and watch only 3 channels on tv.

I'm not looking back with rose colours glasses, it was hard with power cuts and 3 day weeks, but we are so used to 24 hour stimulation that we find it quite hard to imagine what it was like before.

Hope you aren't being serious! It wasn't that long ago that this wasn't available.

Try watching the "back in time for..." series on BBC iplayer. You get a pretty good idea from it of what life was like!

Having lived in a remote area for a small part of my childhood nobody was bored, there was a TV but the reception was pretty much non existent. People lived in bigger communities in general so there was always someone to talk to or play games with. People worked very hard and in the evenings they took time to be able to sit and eat a big meal with everyone, kids would play around the fire outside or play other games indoors. You can't miss what you've never had.

I’m so jealous of people who lived before our highly addictive modern distractions.

Never been into watching much TV. Before I got into the internet I used to read a lot. Lots of newspapers as well. I was much more aware of what was going on in the world.
My gran simply worked though - very long hours. She was a servant and before she had her own kids, basically worked, slept and went to church.

As a child I used to go to the library on a Saturday morning, get out 3 books, take them home, read them, and go and change them for another 3.
I've always been into craft as well.
And I did spend more time than my mum would have liked in front of the TV. You just have to time it right.

Have you ever been camping - where you have to walk a mile to get water/go to the toilet, hadto collect wood for the evenings fire, cook on said fire etc? Everything takes ages, even making a cup of tea takes about an hour!!!
I imagine it’s a little bit like that!!

In the 70s, when I was a kid, I went to the library a lot. When the weather was nice, I played out. I used to make things, design all kinds of contraptions and draw. We inherited a piano when I was 8 so I taught myself to play it.

What those dim and distant far off days of no recall 1995?