We did have, say, "portable entertainment". music players were kinda similar to this too, but yeah there is a massive difference.
>I just wanted to share the above photo of a subway car from 1947 where every single person, even though they’re in a confined space together, aren’t paying any attention to each other because they’re reading media on a newspaper. The recent version of this is, of course, cellphones and iPads, yet the same people out there who hate change continue to cry foul.
1) everybody read pretty much the same content. And not highly curated personalized content. So if you did strike a conversation with someone you’d have some common ground.
2) When starting said conversation the newspaper didn’t keep vibrating in your fingers or making sounds begging your attention back to it and you didn’t experience the FOMO of not giving said attention to it.
In other words. Sense of community was easier to establish and the artificial attention grabbers weren’t there for the social aspect of our beings to come between us as we try to do that social thing our species is known for.
There is great content but you have to dig and sometimes I am just to tired from real life.
Kids would have coloring books or comics. Disinterested teens would have a book. I remember my grandmother carrying a crosswords puzzle, Stanley-style.
Sure it's not something you would do in an occasion where you're expected to keep conversation, like a social living room visit, a fancier diner, a sales call, a date or a birthday party. But even in special occasions with the extended family would be totally normal to excuse yourself to go read a newspaper or something if the rest of the people were engaged in conversation you're not interested in.
https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditThroughHistory/comments/1rkhx...
Now, this is much more communal than you posited but if that was happening I have no doubt people were sneaking an article or two while out with friends.
Laughably wrong.
> nobody punished their children by taking their magazines away.
Also wrong, but less laughably so, as this happened to me (well, with books) :P
Are you being sarcastic? I'm 57 and I recall they absolutely DID do those things in the 70's and 80's. Trains and station platforms? Google some photos!
