In addition to reading ….

As a kid, we were constantly outside. In the summer, spend all day in the pool. Three seasons, in the woods. Any time, playing with neighbor kids. Winter, skiing, sledding, snow forts

Without doom scrolling, we had time for actual activities. Marathons of Risk or Monopoly. Assembling and painting scale models. Building, fixing, or repairing whatever needed it

Playing outside a lot more, which was really fun. Hit the beach or swim docks and jumped off the highdives. Went camping. Bike adventures, etc. Lots more physical toys like nerf, Lego, beyblades, etc. CD music players, cassette music players, or MP3 music players, depending on the era.

People on the metro buses would read the paper to pass the time, listen to music, or read a book.

Back then, you could rent videos or games at a rental place, and there were many more physical hobby shops (there still are, but for live stuff, like aquariums now). Malls were a lot more alive and were true third places. Though even back then, I found people gorging themselves in a materialistic frenzy rather…distasteful. People still do it, just via Amazon and fast fashion online.

The biggest things I remember were how chill people were, the ubiquity of newspapers, smoking and cigarette holders outside, a lack of really any graffiti, and people being incredibly chill and a bit more open. There were also like, zero bike lanes or rail, so everyone drove everywhere.

Gameboy and Walkmans

Read books, read newspapers, chat on the land-line phone for hours.

Before the cliché of everyone being with their faces in smartphones there were clichés about husbands who do nothing but read newspapers all day, or teenage daughters that massively inflate the phone bill because she’s talking with her friends for hours, or children with square eyes watching brain rotting cartoons all day.

I think I used to eat mud when I was bored.

BMX flatland bicycle tricks. Sometimes even rode a unicycle.

I used to pull a random Encyclopedia off the shelf and find something interesting to read about.

Literally complain about it while sitting on the couch bored

Reading, TV, video games, studying, crafts/hobbies

Born in the late 70s, I only recall being bored when my parents made me go to mass, or waiting while they did adult stuff like going to the bank.

Horsing around with my brother or playing with the Casio stopwatch kept us sane.

At home it was TV, Legos, music and bikes

I read magazines, played videogames, watched TV, went “out and about”, browsed the net, etc.

Played outside with friends almost every day.

Child me draws.
Adult me thinks.

You know why we lack philosophy now

Pokemon on Gameboy. Physical books and comics. Sketching.

Shampoo bottles while pooping.

We also were bored quite much. We also did lots of slightly less boring things like just runnung around, reading half bad books or learning assembler.