Millennials and early Gen Z of Lemmy, what did you do for fun before phones became such a huge part of our lives?

Went to the malt shop, swing danced, bet on the ponies.

• reading
• TV / movies
• video games
• listening to music (it’s important to remember that this was an active thing to do … you’d listen to an album beginning to end, digest it, read about it etc)
• playing music
• Hanging out with friends, either doing some of the above or going here and there on pushbikes.

Not gonna lie, I honestly think it was overall better. If the internet were just Wikipedia, blogs and casual non-profit social media, the world would be a better place.

In order:

1. Reading. So, so much reading. Lots of fantasy (Merlin series, Redwall series, Harry Potter series), quite a bit of non-fiction (How Stuff Works-type books), and foreign language stuff as well. I'd try and line up English and Spanish, English and French, and to figure out the "rules" of the other language and its vocab.
2. Video games. The Nintendo 64 was my first "big boy" purchase that I made with my own money. I played a bunch of Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Banjo-Kazooie (and later Banjo-Tooie), and GoldenEye (as well as its "spiritual successor," Perfect Dark). I also picked up a Counter-Strike 1.5/1.6 habit in the early aughts.
3. Aggressive Inline Skating. At least until I broke my arm right before high school, and then ended up too swamped in academics to spend much time on physical activities.

Bicycle and generally playing outdoors. But it was easier when I was a kid, because I was a kid and all my kid friends lived in the same neighborhood.

I would love more non-screen, manual-work hobbies. Crafting, woodworking, etc. But these need space and equipment. Check if you have a hackerspace nearby, that would be a good place to check out. Larger hackerspaces tend to have woodworking, metalworking, electronics and other tools available, as well as some fancy laser cutters and CNC machines.

Reading. Really. I was a huge book worm. I could have stood to have spent more time with friends, though. And I wish that I had figured out earlier that I was gay (aka not been in denial) and started dating.

Video games are fun, but I'm kind of garbage at them so that makes them less enjoyable. Phones didn't really change entertainment that much. I use them as a more convenient music, audiobook, and podcast player. Most of my social media is Reddit and Lemmy, and those don't lend themselves to virtual keyboards.

I mean the thing that still trips me up the most is that social media and phones still takes away from other tech stuff that I'd enjoy doing more. When I was younger I used to play a lot of Game Boy Advance and then later PSP. Once I got a phone it became just that little bit more difficult to focus on just enjoying playing games!

Read comics, ride bike, play game boy

Talked for hours with friends on the land-line

Black tar

Library (it was fun spotting a book I haven't read yet), comics (waiting for salles so I could get a bulk of them for cheap), rollerblade (until you discover that the road is bad and the poor wheels just can't handle it), table top wargames (fun putting models together and doing pew pew sounds one a month with friends). DnD was also occasionally thrown in, but without proper DM the stories are just terrible and teens be doing rather immature things.

I'd rip out the guitar tabs from guitar magazines at the store then try and learn to play them.

My mom caught me once so then I stopped.

Basically being tough - getting sweaty, and challenging yourself.

• tromping around in the woods,
• riding a bike,
• swimming at a pool/creek,
• playing sports (and especially inventing new sports).

Mostly video games, sports and chatting via Skype (both voice and text). Also image boards. Occasionally read a book. At least from a Zillenial perspective, it was not so different from now.

@hellfire103 Probably none of the things I would do today, but were fun back then while I was a kid.

We were a group of kids of various similar ages who would play various games outside, among which I can still recall:

• hide&seek
• leapsha (I don't know how to translate this in English, but basically you would all run away from another person, and if that person would touch you and say you are!, you would be the one everyone would run away from)
• 1,2,3, stand at the wall (where one of you would stand at a wall and say the phrase, then turn around. The others would try to get to you, but if you happen to see someone moving, you'd tell that person and they would need to get back to the starting point)
• country, country we want recruits (I know it might sound wrong to some of you, but it's really fun. You split into two groups, then hold each other tight in a line. One of the group shouts Country, country, we want recruits!. The other replies who? and the first one replies with the name of someone in the second group. Then, the person called runs towards the group who was calling, between two of its members. If these persons manage to stop the runner, then the runner will join their group. If they do not, the runner returns to the original group. The side who gets only one person left, naturally, loses)
• "Lapte gros" or "thick milk" (I don't quite know the rules by heart myself, but you can read an explainer and see a video here - I never really played it myself, so my limbs are pretty much intact)

Then I was also watching a lot on Cartoon Network, we had cartoons like Ed, Edd & Eddy, Life with Louie, Scooby Doo, The Cramp Twins, Tom&Jerry, Looney Tunes etc.

Then some of my friends had bikes and we would compete against each other on a few streets around my neighborhood (that's how I know that place so well I don't even need a map to get around, lol).

I still ride my bike sometimes, but now I live at the top of a 10-floor building and it's really inconvenient for me to get my bike up&down all the time (I cannot get it into the elevator either). So I mostly prefer to get outside and walk.

Indeed, for a teenager like you seem to be, it would be more fun to hang around with some friends, so why not just bring them over and play something 😁 Edit: you can also buy a ball if you can find one at a store.

Just make sure you don't trash your house or something, haha.

Play safe!

I mean we still had Nintendos as kids and N64 and Playstations as teenagers. Even early Millennials probably had access to internet as teenagers be it dial up or just at school in the labs or library. But internet was consumed different then. Forums/boards, anonymous chatrooms, and straight up surfing random websites through webrings was the gist of it rather than videos, pictures, statuses, etc.

A very American thing to do was to go waste time at the mall. Even if you didn't buy anything it provided a climate controlled people watching place.

Listened to CDs, smoked a lot, stared at the walls, cried when appropriate. But then I'm an Xer, so...

Encyclopedia CD ROM

Explore rice fields

CDs

Metal shows

More metal shows

I have my hobbies, then obviously reading.

same things i do now 🤷‍♀️

I was a teenager in the early 2000s and social media was just becoming a thing. While I did partake in early social media like MySpace and Youtube we did do other, usually dumb, stuff. I played airsoft with friends, went spelunking in the storm water sewer system lol, watched movies with friends. I remember we found an abandoned house in the woods near a park and explored that multiple times.

I was reading more and spending time creating (drawing and making animated shirts in Flash!)

Videogames. Yugioh, Magic.

I played on my ps1 / ps2 a lot for a while

Watched tv

Would call friends on phone and talk with them

I mean yes, we also hung out sometimes, but I wouldn't say it's more often than I hangout with friends nowadays. Technology was still part of my life, just in another form.

Listened to CD’s on Walkman, played collectible card games at the local hobby store, played role playing games with friends, etc.

Getting a time consuming hobby like wood working or programming or something that can pay off in the long run is I think probably a wise route to go.

Video games, slept (I lucid dream, so I always look forward to sleeping), day dreamed, drew, read books, wrote. I didn't really have access to internet since I lived really rural.

well, I had a lot of gender dysphoria so I dissociated at lot

so the “obvious” thing that’s doable even when solo is just “hobbies”. music making, game making, pottery if you can get ahold of (someone with) a kiln, drawing, etc.

but on the non-creative side (because let’s be honest as a teen you’re often too mentally exhausted from school for those), hop on a bike, choose a direction, and find all the weird treasures on the outskirts of town. plenty of “weird things in the desert” and all that — but people take that trope too literally to notice that it’s really “weird things in the places people don’t frequent”: last week i stumbled across a few pallets of bees staged off a gravel road 5mi from my home. dunno if they’re being transported, brought in for pollination, or what, but it was a fun find all the same.

I certainly did a lot more fishing back then.

GameCube