To ask what people did on trains before mobile devices?!

[doris9034]

I'm returning home from London o the train and literally everyone around me is either watching a film, reading an ebook, gaming, texting, listening to music or on social media which obviously I am as well So want did people do before all this was invented ..... surely they didn't actually talk to each other 😮

Books, newspapers, magazines, sudoku

No-one talks. It is forbidden.

I've been commuting 11 years so have seen the rise of the smart phone. I used to read, but often the free paper rather than a book. I don't read it now. The invention of the Kindle was a wonderful thing. But I rarely bring it with me anymore because social media and a bit of news is very well suited to a tired half hour commute.

Had a more peaceful journey? Didn't learn the ins and outs of total strangers' private lives?

I read - an actual book bot a kindle. And I LOVE it :-)

Read.

Read a magazine and look out of the window. I don’t remember being bored!

I quite often travel without any mobile device now. Books are still around, the view out of the window is still accessible (more so, as they seem to wash train windows more frequently than they did). Used to travel the length of Europe in the days when that sort of thing was still affordable. Quite nice to have 2 or 3 days to think in.

Apparently in the old days it was newspapers. For me it was my Walkman.

Used to commute in the eighties. People did chat then and it wasn’t seen as weird. Met some nice people but always felt vulnerable in those carriages where there were compartments off the corridor. Bit of a lucky dip as to who would enter your compartment.

I would read books or pass out.

I commuted in the 80s & then not again until about 2005. I couldn't believe the difference! We used to read books & newspapers mostly, and listen to walkmans. I did the cross word too.

Same as I do now - read a book.

Read books or newspapers usually. I noticed that kindles became more used at the same time as Fifty Shades of Grey came out.

I still take word searches or a book on train journeys.

I listened to music on my (cassette) Walkman or CD Walkman. Now I listen to it on my phone. So nothing's changed for me.
Except how easy it is to change songs!

I love staring out the window with my music on.

Listen to music/audiobooks on my Walkman. Read a book. Snooze.
Same as I do now only with different tech.

Read a book / the newspaper.

i commuted on the tube before smartphones and that's what people did.

Some slept or went into a dazed trance.

Talk to each other? Nope

Read, snooze, stare out of the window, make up stories in my head about the other passengers... the same as now really.

I do miss smoking carriages.

Oh yes, my dad was very good at the Telegraph origami. Quite an art

Nope never talking - books, papers, magazines, crossword book, working on hard copies rather than virtual copies, sleeping...
People have always filled commuting time with something, it just so happens all those old somethings can now be used on the same device!

Dare I say it - smoked. Read newspapers, magazines and books. Looked out the window. Never said, "I'm on the train".

Read or listen to music.

I still read books on the train. Listen to podcasts sometimes as well now

I used to have a commute where my stop was the end of the line. Always empty too. It was the 7.30 train. I’d put my season ticket on the table and go to sleep.

Talk. I met loads of people on the four hour trip to uni and back several times a year!