Things we did before the internet and smart phones

eviltimeban

Watched MTV / Chart show / TOTP to see new music videos.

Arranged to meet someone at a specific time and specific place.

Called someone's house phone.

Called to a friend's house without knowing if they were in or not.

Used the newspaper to look at cinema listings / jobs / TV show times / sport results.

Carried those little Dart timetable cards around.

Used phone cards.

Bought music in record stores.

Used real cameras and brought photos to the chemist for developing.

Used pocket diaries / filofaxes.

Sent faxes.

Used Teletext / Ceefax to check the weather.

Watched the news just once a day.

Waved our arms in the air at gigs.

Be uncontactable for hours at a time.

Made our parents worry because of the last point.

Magico Gonzalez

Worked.

bear1

Masturbated....
Come to think of it shag all has changed.






















Anyone spot my double meaning ha ha ha line?

kfallon

Ocassionally used a pay phone!

MsBubbles

Have pen pals
Enter competitions using postcards

GLaDOS

Check football results on teletext

BeerWolf

Held a book

darkpagandeath

Would be able to pay for water charges..... :pac:

kfallon

We didn't take pictures of our willies, gees, boobs and arses!!

SEPT 23 1989

Bought music and football magazines

Mr. CooL ICE

kfallon wrote: »

We didn't take pictures of our willies, gees, boobs and arses!!

Speak for yourself

The Davestator

No. 1 One Direction Fan wrote: »

Check football results on teletext

Watched entire matches on teletext!

Saralee4

Nothing compared to our parents who 'walked to school in 10 foot of snow' haha

"Bought music in record stores." - this is the one I really miss. Its just to easy to get a song now. I remember when I used to buy a cd with my babysitting money and I would be listening to it for months until I got my next one. I would spend hours in the cd shop and then id line up the next cd that I was going to get. I much prefer to have an actual cd rather than downloading.

My Dad was a head wrecker with the tele-text though. He was always on it checking his races. I don't live at home anymore but im pretty sure he still uses it. But there used to be a fun questionnaire game on it called 'Bamboozle', anyone remember that?

Duggy747

Watched The Movie Show with Dave Fanning for the latest in movie news.

That theme tune....

Notorious97

Am i the only one who still uses teletext and aertel? Ive a smart phone etc i just use it still haha

Links234

Saralee4 wrote: »

"Bought music in record stores." - this is the one I really miss. Its just to easy to get a song now. I remember when I used to buy a cd with my babysitting money and I would be listening to it for months until I got my next one. I would spend hours in the cd shop and then id line up the next cd that I was going to get. I much prefer to have an actual cd rather than downloading.

I still buy CDs too

Eutow

Saralee4 wrote: »

Nothing compared to our parents who 'walked to school in 10 foot of snow' haha

"Bought music in record stores." - this is the one I really miss. Its just to easy to get a song now. I remember when I used to buy a cd with my babysitting money and I would be listening to it for months until I got my next one. I would spend hours in the cd shop and then id line up the next cd that I was going to get. I much prefer to have an actual cd rather than downloading.

My Dad was a head wrecker with the tele-text though. He was always on it checking his races. I don't live at home anymore but im pretty sure he still uses it. But there used to be a fun questionnaire game on it called 'Bamboozle', anyone remember that?

Yeah, Bamber Bamboozle on C4. Ceefax on a Saturday waiting for updates/scores on Premier League games. Going to page 302 (Ceefax) to read football related headlines and stories.

pragmatic1

Hoard pornography.
Pay for entertainment.

There's nothing that I miss prior to web 2.0. The internet absolutely rules.

pragmatic1

Links234 wrote: »

I still buy CDs too

Why?

ALiasEX

Looked out the window to tell the weather

H3llR4iser

eviltimeban wrote: »

Used phone cards.

Funny you'd mention this without mentioning the bigger picture: we used payphones. I still remember the huge queues, around the only 2 payphones, in the main square of the small southern Italian town I went vacationing with my parents decades ago, as well as the red phoneboots in London. Gone for the most part now. Even been in the situation of having a dead battery or no credit on your phone and needing to make a call? Almost impossible now, even if you're right in the middle of a city.

eviltimeban wrote: »

Used real cameras and brought photos to the chemist for developing.

One of the few things I say "good riddance" to. It was expensive and incredibly unforgiving for all those (the vast majority) not blessed with a major talent for photography. Digital photos cost nothing and chances are that one on 1.000 snaps will be a good photo, even if you suck immensely at using a camera

eviltimeban wrote: »

Used Teletext / Ceefax to check the weather.

Ah the memories...I wasted afternoons reading the news and every kind of stuff on the Teletext, while I should have been studying! Not sure about Ceefax, but the Italian RAI version, Televideo, was (and still is) a complete magazine with articles about everything, from internal affairs to horoscope going through sports, politics and showbiz. Amazingly, it has not been discontinued yet:

http://www.servizitelevideo.rai.it

eviltimeban wrote: »

Be uncontactable for hours at a time.

Made our parents worry because of the last point.

Ah the blessing. You were out and about, nobody could annoy you, end of it. And I would say our parents worried much less than today's uber-protective, bubble-wrapping ones. It was normal for them to see their kids, especially the teenage ones, go out and play for hours to end.

Actually I would say people in general lived more stress free; None of the "oh my god, I texted him 7 minutes ago and he didn't reply yet, there must have been an accident!" nonsense.

I'll add some:

- Most couples arguments were about money/relationship, not Facebook pictures and the statuses;

- We remembered a lot of phone numbers, even as kids: home, aunt/uncle, grandparents, best friend(s), maybe local police station;

- We remembered all of our friends birthdays;

- We went to the arcade to play videogames;

- We went to the library to find information/do research on anything;

And finally...

- We actually did stuff with our computers, rather than waste night after night watching series on Netflix or stupid youtube clips.
That's right...sometimes people wonder "what did I use a computer for when I had no internet?". Simple answer: write documents, play games, do art. Now it's mostly just a glorified, multifunctional TV screen for everyone.

eviltimeban

pragmatic1 wrote: »

Hoard pornography.

Actually that's a good point, without the internet it was virtually impossible to see porn, if you particularly wanted to do that. I remember going to a European city on holidays and being amazed that they sold porn magazines AT THE AIRPORT.

I still buy CDs too, though not as many as before. I miss CD singles - a single and three extra songs. A lot of bands' "b-sides" were some of their most interesting tracks.

Continuing the music theme: slowly getting into older bands and wondering what the records you saw in the shop sounded like. "Abbey Road? I wonder what that's like?? I'll have to wait till I can buy it."

Read the back of shampoo bottles, while on the toilet

gimmick

Spent hours, days if not weeks trying to figure out what that facking song in your head is, or what other show that actor is in etc. While it was unbelievably frustrating, I kind of miss the little kick you would get when it finally dawned on you.

Also, pre smart phone/internets we got 2/10 in some rounds in table quizzes

Thud

read fold out maps
and got proper lost without being able to call anyone or find out where you were from GPS

whisky_galore

Bought Playboy magazine...for the articles...

Saralee4

eviltimeban wrote: »

Actually that's a good point, without the internet it was virtually impossible to see porn, if you particularly wanted to do that. I remember going to a European city on holidays and being amazed that they sold porn magazines AT THE AIRPORT.
."

I bet you appreciated that porn more though!
When it comes to internet porn, I always think of the Southpark episode 'Over-Logging'.

Randy explains that he has become so used to being able to find any fetish he wanted with a click of a mouse that he "can't exactly go back to Playboy."

Luke92

Before smart phones I used my mobile phone to arrange meeting times and didn't show up at a friends house unless he answered his mobile and said it was OK to head over.

Links234

pragmatic1 wrote: »

Why?

Honestly? There's just something about a physical product, and some special editions and the like can come with some really cool extras, especially the Japanese ones. Like the new Maximum The Hormone album came with an actual comic book, seriously. Haven't read it yet though. Or the special edition of Dir En Grey's Arche which was 2 CDs, DVD and book with a load of interview and stuff. I've gotten posters with the new Nocturnal Bloodlust, and other things. But there's just something about a physical album I can't put my finger on, buying it makes it seem that much more special, I feel as though I appreciate it and enjoy it that much more. I just get something that I don't get out of a digital download.

It's a bit strange, because for other things I'm all aboard with digital copies of things, games especially, I love Steam oh so much. But there's just some things I'm probably never gonna get onboard with for digital media, comic books for one.

Karl Stein

The whole rigmarole of getting rolls of film, taking photos, going to the chemist with the film for them to send it off to have it developed, wondering how many of your photos won't be duds, collecting the photos etc was quite the chore.

Mr_Spaceman

Links234 wrote: »

I still buy CDs too

So do I!

Plenty of people still do, thankfully.

whisky_galore

The ar*e must have fallen out of the encyclopedia market, haven't seen a door-to-door World Book salesman in years!

Pinch Flat

Cb radio

smash

Did anyone else have a pager?

whisky_galore

kfallon wrote: »

We didn't take pictures of our willies, gees, boobs and arses!!

Would be rather embarrassing picking up the prints from the local chemist's.....but OK for all the world to see now.

gimmick

Going to the video shop and having a tantrum of epic proportions if the previous renter had not rewound the tape you have got.

monflat

Have we all lost ability to talk to one another now without an electronic device in our hands?

I think we don't talk to one another as much any more

Paddycrumlinman

Used to stock up on the Sun newspaper for some fap material.

Read the back of shampoo bottles when taking a **** Or the said Sun newspaper to kill two birds with one stone.

smash

monflat wrote: »

Have we all lost ability to talk to one another now without an electronic device in our hands?

Not at all. I have lost the ability to write though.

gimmick

Actaully a big one and one I think its a vital rite of passage for any teen, and that is ringing the girls house and running the risk of a parent or older brother answering. Frightening. Similarly having to call to the door for them for the first time rather than texting "Im outside".

The other side of it is getting that longed for phone call but one of your parents answers the phone. The embarrassment of having to tell them all about this new girl who you wish to plough, that she is very clever, has all her own teeth and is not into drugs. UGH.

eviltimeban

Luke92 wrote: »

Before smart phones I used my mobile phone to arrange meeting times and didn't show up at a friends house unless he answered his mobile and said it was OK to head over.

I suppose I'm thinking more mobile phones full stop. I got my first one 1998, which means I spent those vital late teenager / early 20s years not knowing if anyone was in.

eviltimeban

gimmick wrote: »

The embarrassment of having to tell them all about this new girl who you wish to plough, that she is very clever, has all her own teeth and is not into drugs. UGH.

"Yes father. Her name is Felicity and I wish to plough her this very eve".

whisky_galore

Having to write a strongly worded letter to the newspaper's letters column in order to vent.

eviltimeban

Going to a travel agency to book flights / holidays.

Reading the "Be Our Guest" brochure to pick a good hotel in Ireland.

Going inside a bank to pay bills.

Not knowing what anyone thought of the latest episode of a TV show until the next day.

GL scrappy

Reading the Buy&Sell on the jax, dunnydeal on the smartphone has made the experience richer.

kfallon

Paddycrumlinman wrote: »

Read the back of shampoo bottles when taking a **** Or the said Sun newspaper to kill two birds with one stone.

A 'pedal & crank' while you shíte? :eek:

Gerry T

Got off the couch to change the TV channel, no remote control back then !

IamNotNumber

Learned about womens bodies from the lingerie sections in clothes catalogues.

Ash.J.Williams

getting a few minutes of metal or REAL indie on the chart show!

KKkitty

Had only about 2 or 3 stations on the TV. Had no remote for the TV so actually having to get up and change the volume or channel. Rewinding vhs tapes cos someone else didn't. Passed notes to each other in school.

Miaireland

Wrinting letters if you need particular information from a company rather than being able to get it online.