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            How Did We Fill Our In-Between Time Before Smartphones?

   Adam Engst

   At The Atlantic, [1]Ian Bogost asks (and answers) the question, 'How
   did we occupy ourselves during bits of extra time before we had
   smartphones?'

     Before smartphones, people didn't invest their in-between time into
     forging social bonds or doing self-improvement. They mostly suffered
     through constant, endless boredom. So let us not lament or malign
     the time we waste on smartphones, at least not so much. It is bad to
     be seduced into argument or conspiracism, to shop or lust or
     doomscroll, to bring one's job into the dentist's chair or the
     living-room recliner. But it was also bad to suffer the terror of
     monotony. Now there is too much happening, but before, ugh, nothing
     ever happened.

   There's no question that smartphones outcompete nearly everything else
   around for our attention, sometimes problematically. But I don't
   disagree with Bogost's claim that we used to squander much of our
   in-between time on pointless activity. I'm constitutionally incapable
   of ignoring text within my sight, so I remember reading cereal boxes at
   breakfast, magazine covers in checkout lines, display ads on public
   transit, out-of-date magazines in doctors' offices, in-flight Skymall
   catalogs, and posted signs (however irrelevant) of all types. And no, I
   didn't generally strike up conversations with strangers, practice
   mindfulness, or draft articles in my head. How about you?

   [2]Read original article

References

   1. https://archive.ph/2HKzl
   2. https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2023/07/before-smartphones-boredom/674631/

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