How It Was Possible for People to Live Without Smartphones in the Past

Imagining our lives without our smartphones seems to be impossible. However, there was no trace of them as we know them 15 or 20 years ago. People had totally different occupations than taking photos and video recording everything they see, or staring at their mobile phones even during the middle of a play, concert, football game, or meeting. A lot of voices claim that people without smartphones were a lot more honest, alive, realistic, and close to each other. While we are not here to necessarily vouch for such a perspective, let’s find out how it was possible for our society to go on with everyday life even without having smartphones:

People were a lot more preoccupied with reading books when there were no smartphones around. Surely, such a hobby sounds obsolete or boring for many of us today, unfortunately, but it is still possible for people to have a lot of fun by reading physical books. Since it wasn’t as easy as today to find the needed information on a screen connected to the internet, people preferred to gather the knowledge they needed from consuming physical material, such as books, magazines, newspapers, etc.

Yes, reading can be a lot of fun! In world history, there have been numerous humorous books written by top-class authors. George Carlin’s books represent a minor fraction of what examples could be given in that regard.

Unfortunately, a lot of people, especially the young ones, don’t have the patience to watch entire movies these days anymore. Considering that social media is becoming more and more prevalent in their lives, they mostly prefer to watch content that is 30 seconds long rather than watching an entire movie of 2 hours, for instance. While it’s ultimately each and every person’s right to decide what they want to watch and how to spend their time, it’s a bit sad that a lot of top-rated movies that have written history have gone into oblivion for the younger generations.

But when it comes to people who didn’t have social media or smartphones around, most of them preferred to watch entire movies. The delight of going to the cinema or even watching your favorite movie or TV series at home, eventually with a friend or life partner, is priceless.

When there was no such thing as social media or smartphones around, people were a lot more engaged with one another. They actually enjoy the presence of another real person in real life a lot more than they do these days. Feel free to ask your parents or grandparents about how they spent their time and had fun decades ago, and you will observe that in the most cases, there is no such thing as sadness or remorse in their words. Speaking to another human being in real life can be a lot more pleasant than speaking to others via social media.

Gaming was a major trend even long before social media and smartphones appeared. A lot of people enjoyed playing top-rated video games such as Counter-Strike, Half-Life, FIFA, GTA, and a lot more. Many folks even preferred to play along with others via LAN multiplayer sessions, meaning that they had to play together with a keyboard or gamepads. Playing online games with a friend back in the 90s or even early ’00s was a blessing for many. Of course, many gamers from those days had their differences, as it was never all peaches and creams, but even so, they had a lot of fun.

We are not here to say that social media and smartphones are necessarily bad, but only to pinpoint the fact that they are making us too cozy and willing to give up true human interactions. Of course, there are a lot of people out there who are into both smartphones and social media and still enjoy a lot of old-school hobbies.