to ask how young people passed their time before they had screens 24/7

[WeneverownedaniPad]

This is not a "it were all fields round here" post but ...

DD(14) has been getting a lot of headaches. The optician says it's a combination of tiredness and possibly too much screentime so I need to act.

Thing is, her teachers say she gives 100% in school and her behaviour is excellent. I never have to nag her to do homework and she is very sunny-natured - no adolescent mood swings. She trains a couple of evenings and every weekend for the team sport she competes in. The rest of the time she is on her phone/laptop/Netflix. She's not interested in social media and her friends don't seem to "hang out" in real life - probably because they're glued to their bloody phones!

What did we do (those of who are that old!) before there was so much screen time available?

What do your teens do?

I am scanning my 1997 diary at present. My first 3 children did not really have screens/phones in the way my youngest 2 (who are now at university) did although even the twins one refused any smart phone until he was about 14 - he just wasn't interested. The older children - one had a sega megadrive and nintendo 64 but did a lot of other things too. The girls were out almost 10 hours a day at weekends with horses. I bought them a pony in 1998.

Even back in the 1970s our mother used to come into the TV room on sunny Saturday afternoons where the 3 of us might be stuck in front of a black and white old film (the only thnig on) and open the curtains and suggest going outside. Victorians used to complain about teenager girls stuck in books rather than outside. Perhaps things never really change.

So in our case with our children the pony helped - he was quite cheap as he was on shared working livery at stables. Secondly the girls did loads of school sport , day after day, late back from school at 6 before starting homework for swimming club, athletics matches etc.

However having time to be bored or just reading or just watching something isn't necessarily wrong as a teenager - some are quite keen to be in every club going and others aren't. One of my sons his teacher said he might as well have been on a correspondence course for all the talking he ever did in class and he was in just about nothing at school in terms of clubs by his mid teens but perfectly happy and doing very well in public exams and now at unviversity - he is just not a club joiner and not into most sports (although his twin brother is very sporty)

my kids don't have that much screen time to be honest.

they have after school club or other at least 4 evenings a week, we allow the 5th evening depending on the amount of homework they have. By the time they have done that and said homework, have a shower, diner, internet and screen time is over and they can go in their bedroom to read or potter around. They can also walk the dogs if they want.

Weekends they have clubs, parties, friends over or we are going to spend the weekend with friends, so not that much screen time either.

Definitely played out all day long. Very little tv as there was no daytime tv when I was a child and very little choice in the evenings.

Loads off stuff.
A lot of dancing.
Spending time in each others houses making up dances and in the garden.
Teaching each other gymnastics.
Making music compilations.
Off to the park with other kids from the street.
Pick up sticks.
Tom boy tests.
Roller skating.
Bike riding.
Reading magazines together... cutting out the pics of the famous people we fancied and putting them on our bedroom walls.
Doing each others hair.
At one stage we used to put crisp packets in the oven to shrink, then turn them into badges.
Trips out to markets on a Saturday or Sunday.
Swimming.
Saturday morning cinema shows.
Most of that is free but things like swimming are much more expensive these days.

Read and listened to music a lot. Watched more TV than I ever would now. Drank Jack Daniels on street corners... that kinda thing.

Well, I grew up before the internet in a country with no daytime TV so I certainly did not spend as much time watching screens as my children do. We read a lot, went for bike rides, hung out in parks and playgrounds with friends, shopping and visiting with parents, hobbies like painting, sports etc. We got a lot of fresh air and had a lot of freedom

Read books, watched tv, listened to music, snogging my boyfriend, talking to friends.

Shout, just 17, Smash Hits and later on, More magazines.

And boredom.

Read, listen to radio or music, do hobbies like arts and crafts, colouring, painting, jigsaws, sports, walks, make birthday cards, make Xmas cards

Read and reread millions of books, bike rides exploring the villages around my small town. Chatting on the phone, swimming just with mates, homework, listening to music while staring out of the window for hours, cinema with friends (never went with parents), hiring videos from the video shop, obsessing over Sean Bean (watched Lady Chatterley with the volume really low so my mum wouldn't hear). Step aerobics with my friend. Got a Saturday job at 14.

Teen in the 80s here.

In my early teens I would go to youth club play out with local friends, catch the bus int town and window shop, get bus to swimming baths etc.

Read books, CB radio ( great for meeting boys!), walking the dog, bit of housework.

Also had two paper rounds, babysitting job and helped my mum with younger children .
Once I got to about 15 hanging on street corners with cider, cigs and boys..

Then pubs and more boys.

Don't recall watching much tv really- it was always the parents choice of channel.

Quite different to today I think.

Our DC are now in their late teens/ early 20s and did very few of those activities.

Spent aaaages on the landline each evening to the same friends I'd been at school with, disecting the minutiae of the school day
Taping my best songs off the radio
Learning the lyrics to my best songs from tape inserts/Smash Hits/copied out by hand from mates' tape inserts
Made compilation tapes
Doing crappy magazine quizzes
Walking the dog
Experimenting with Rimmel makeup
Doing my Jane Fonda workout tape "now jog in place and clap! kick those heels back!"
Watched loads of shitty TV - Neighbours, Home and Away, EastEnders, Top of the Pops, Quantum Leap, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Red Dwarf

so not really the wholesome, constructive outdoorsy stuff people reminisce about.

Ah yes, the landline. I remember my daughtrs on calls to friends for one hour! I apid an £800 landline bill of one to a friend abroad even once - I will never forget the cost. Those were the days. Now calls will be free on Skype etc.

[In 2019 one of my student sons by the way can be on the phone for over an hour to his friends, often longer BUT it costs nothing now]

1970's child here - we had daytime TV - Pebble Mill and Crown Court!

I used to read, listen to music, write badly, the highlight was getting an all day bus ticket and riding round the Wirral all day with my mate - sad fucker I was!

I tended to be bored a lot

one difference I have noticed between 16 year old me and my 16 year old DD - pubs/clubs - I was going to both at 15 - she socialises at her mates houses and barely touches alcohol

Early teens:

More hanging out in each others houses and around the local area, finding stuff to do.

Mid teens: Far more drinking, smoking and sexual activity than todays get up to.

Late teens: same as above ( according to the research)

oh look I found this site - actual Radio Times editions from the 70's - flash back!

radiosoundsfamiliar.com/complete-tv-times-march-21-1970.php

read books
moped and sulked
went for long walks (countryside, not a lot else to do)
phoned my friends from the house landline for hours, even after a full day with them at school

Lots of the above but I also had a lot of pen friends and used to spend a lot of time writing letters to them and also my cousins in the US who are my age.
That’s definitely not something I can see teens doing these days! Although my 8 yo DD has a pen friend we met on holiday last summer and they write occasionally.

Lost touch with all the pen friends but I still have the letters between me and my cousins and how we laugh at our teen angst when they come to visit. That’s an experience our DC will never have!

At 14, I was doing a lot of reading (which my headaches were blamed on - mine were/are hormonal which wasn't figured out until years later), writing, watching anime, wrestling, and the country music channel, and going on walks with my walkman for hours at a time in what in hindsight were not the safest places or times to be doing so.

My 14 year old does have his phone/tv/video game times, but also reads, mostly comics, crafting costumes and accessories for those costumes, quite a bit of photography (recently finished a course at an art place in town), cadet duties, and sometimes still just goes and plays or for a walk outside.

I was a teenager in the 1950s, so no TV. We did listen to the radio a lot especially the service from a ship - can't remember the name, there was a film about it a few years ago. Kept upto date with all the pops.
And also as others have said we had much more freedom so out and about a lot. We lived by the sea so went swimming most days in the summer. And boys of course, but most of us were much primmer then, a big disgrace to get pregnant.

Was thinking about this t'other day actually.

As a teen I :

Read lots
Did loads of sport
Hung out with friends
Hiking
Cooking
Watched some TV but not loads tbh

90s teen BTW

Mid teens: Far more drinking, smoking and sexual activity than todays get up to.

^^

I'd agree with this. I spent a hell of a lot of time between the ages of 15 - 17 on the pull, most of the time for unsavoury types!