I mean, if you want an answer to that you could just stop using your smartphone for a few weeks and see what your brain comes up with. Here’s a short list of some examples that were popular when I was a kid and smartphones did not exist yet:
Magazines, the daily newspaper, books, going out and exploring, shopping at malls, doing a hobby or craft, personal projects, television, chit-chatting with friends or even strangers, video games, puzzles, play with your pets, exercise, play sports, sitting quietly and being alone with your thoughts.
For toilet time there was riveting reading material such as: Shampoo ingredients. Hand soap ingredients. Bodywash ingredients. The latter two assuming it wasn’t bar soap.
Maybe someone was around to bring you a magazine… or tell you to hurry up and finish and get it yourself.
Clearly I don’t read even now, as my comment is a more or less the same as others here, and a day late.
I remember reading any text i found while beeing on toilette when i was a kid(even shampoo ingredients).
Ah, the panic of having to use the bathroom so severely you can’t make it to your book or magazine in time. Oh look, I wonder what Methyllaurelsulfate does?
I always thought the bathroom reader books were tacky and stupid, then a I got a couple and they came in clutch so many times.
Now that I have a phone, I think it’s kinda gross to have items out for everyone to touch while using the toilet. Weird how perception changes.
Methylisothiazolinone, what mysteries do you hide?
yea same I was reading everything that vaguely resembled a string of characters
I was getting my vehicle worked over recently. At the time I was listening to a podcast. A couple other people, probably early 50s were chatting. The old dude in the corner, likely around 70-80 was just sitting there hands empty, looking around, reading nothing like some kind of psychopath.
For 40 minutes.
He did nothing.
It was honestly rather impressive.
I would have called the cops
Whoaaa whoa, whoa now. I don’t want the block demolished. Psycho old man strength vs shooty patootie police? I was just there for an oil change and to check on some potential damage.
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
Drugs.
Read.
Read books, play videogames, go outside and beat each other with sticks…
I used to grab anything I could to read when taking a shit. Even reading shampoo bottle labels. Now I’m here typing this mess to you guys as I take a dump.
I prefer the phrase ‘giving a dump’, because I sure don’t seem to be taking anything away from the transaction.
Alas I have digressed. I too indulged in the literary expositions of the shampoo bottle. Conditioner only on Fridays.
Same. I’d go through cabinets to find shit to read.
Pinch it and GTFO! Others need to use the bathroom too!
Same thing I do now. TV, video games, find something to do with friends.
- Watch tv.
- Read a book.
- Play single-player pc games.
- Literally go outside and touch grass.
There’s something to be said for browsing TV. Having favorites channels and recalling between two different shows between commercials. Sucks if commercials were synced.
Like, some films I wouldn’t put on voluntarily but I’d watch if I caught it on you know? Also found a lot of new stuff I wouldn’t have otherwise seen.
It’s interesting how some movies suck you in even though they’re definitely aren’t your thing.
Back in the 80s TV where I lived used to show Bollywood films at about 1am, which was when I got home from work. So I started watching this film, which was apparently a romance. Sparky career woman rejects advances of handsome fellow. Everyone starts singing and dancing. Ok, a musical then. Thugs burst in and shoot the place up. Woman’s father is killed, she swears vengeance. Uh ok… Local politician tries to shut down newspaper our heroine has just inherited, handsome fellow intervenes. More singing and dancing, ending in fireworks! which is apparently Bollywood for hot sex. Plot twist, handsome fellow is actually a baddie! I had to stop watching at 4am, no idea how it ended up.
When I was about 13 I downloaded a lot of the Simpsons or sort on my phone, which was not a smartphone but still could play videos and songs. Had a lot of great time with that little device.
I’m pretty sure no one knows this phone because I think it was for South Korea only but it had dedicated touch button bar at the bottom for media control. It was so good. I wish that is still a thing…
I used to draw anytime there wasn’t something to do, which was most of the time. Now it’s my job
Let me tell you a tale about downloading erotic jpeg files over 28k modems and stitching them back together, in which the image file was split into pieces, uuencoded and posted on Usenet.
When in the bathroom, the marketing and ingredients to all the shampoos were read.
Some people had magazine racks next to the toilet. There was a whole Seinfeld episode about George taking a book into the bathroom.
Uncle John’s Bathroom Reader, new book annually, great way to pass the time on the toilet.
Television was actually fun to watch. Magazines were actually fun to read. Video games were actually fun to play. Hell, playing outside was fun. Playing with toys was fun (even as an adult). Spending time with users on early internet forums was also very fun. Music was much more aesthetically pleasing to listen to (at least the hits of the 00s were, imo). We fidgeted with literally anything we could think of. Pens, rulers, balls (it’s not what you think), toys, even our own fingers.
It was really easy to get bored back then too, but at least it was really easy to escape boredom back then.
Magazines were well written, articles were new and fresh. The CNN 24 news cycle brought mass distribution of the news but before that you tuned in for the scheduled news hour you liked
Back when you had to tune in for basically everything
I remember being excited for pc gamer to show up in the mail
Those were the good ol’ days.
