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 spent a lot of time on the phone, I would frequently call my friends for an hour in the evening. I also watch tv, I watched a lot of soap operas, neighbours and home and away religiously. I did read a bit but I think phone calls, hanging out chatting in mates bedrooms and tv probably took up the time early teens now spend in front of screens! I went out more in my later teens but not really at 14.

I mostly played the SIMs and downloaded illegal music tbh. I appear to be a functioning adult anyway...

There will be vast differences in answers depending on our age.

Mainly went out and tried to meet boys! Gangs of us would hang out in parks. Not ideal I know, but at least we were socializing and talking to members of the human race! If indoors used to read for hours on end, watch TV, make mix tapes etc

Books, magazines (Jackie!!), phoned friends on land-line (with curly cord and round dial thing), did homework, watched TV (3 channels, no remote)

Also smoking drinking and sex. (Mid nineties) at least you know where your daughter is I guess

You were having sex at 14?

I didn't have any screens as a teen. I read, drew, wrote, lay on my bed thinking and hung out with friends.

My daughter mainly crafts, draws and talks - she never stops talking!

Yes lots of us did..inner london school (if that makes a difference) in the mid 90s. Also had feckless hippy parents who didn't know what I was up to. It's really very sad I know. I would be devastated if my daughter behaved in the same way

Some lovely memories on this thread , Jackie magazine, listening to Radio Luxembourg, fantasising about David Cassidy, hanging out with school friends, helping out with local Cubs, part time work (easy to get a washing up job in a cafe or even babysitting from 12/13 - that would be unheard of now). Family visits were more of an expectation, I would always spend a few days holidaying with my grandparents every school holiday and half term, they didn’t live anywhere special but it was just a treat to get away from my younger brothers and be spoiled!

At 15 we had just started going into bars and pubs and smoking weed. We smoked cigs from 12/13. Other things we did was walked round on a night chatting up lads. Listening to music and days out to other cities etc.

Radio Luxemburg - that was it, thanks Ragwort
I remember Radio Caroline too, but that later, in the '60s.

When I was 14 I did all my own laundry, ironing and cooking. I also went horse riding a lot and looked after my horse. I did a lot of drawing and made things. I watched some TV, but probably not more than an hour a day. At weekends I went into town or swimming with my friends.

silverschool Yes a bit sad, and not the norm at all. I was a youth worker in the 90s and had access to research about when kids were self reporting they first had sex.
At 14 a lot of kids were doing what we called heavy petting - snogging, touching breasts etc, but full sex at 14 was not common.

Reading - my sisters and I visited our local library every week.

Playing outside in our street with the neighbours' children.

Watching quite a lot of tv.

Going to the local park with our grandparents.

Playing in our back garden where we grew veg with our grandparents, built dens and used a tiny set of kitchen equipment to make potions from plants (mostly weeds).

After school club.

Think I was in with a bad crowd I'm glad it wasn't the norm then and now x

I used to spend hours listening to Atlantic 252!

Listened to music, read, hung out with friends. Daydreamed....

I remember doing all of the above but on Sunday afternoons I was soooooooooo bored.

I definitely read a lot more than my DD15 does now.

Sports, every evening and on Sarurdays. A lot of reading, homework and pretending to do homework but reading instead. As I got older, I used to hang out at Macdonalds, the first that opened in my hometown.
And any chance we got, we drank our parents booze.

We used to record songs off the radio -hoping the DJ didn't speak over the music or cut it short. Listening to music on cassette tapes. We wrote letters to our friends. We rang each other on the house phone. Daydreaming about our latest crush. Doing homework. Watching TV. Reading Just17 and Smash Hits magazine. Watching top of the pops. Kissing boys. Going to friend's houses or they coming to mine.
Happy times.

Some lovely memories on this thread

Yes there are. I would spend hours hammering away on my manual Corona typewriter - short stories, "articles" and letters to Cathy & Claire (never posted them!)

I remember being extremely bored a lot.

I was a teenager in the early 2000s, so before phones really took off. I had one, but mainly played Snake on it. I spent most of ages 14 - 18 sat on MSN though - so probably had as much screen time as teenagers today! If I wasn't online, I was having a 'Tesco value picnic' and skulking around drinking Kick.