Remember that feeling when you had to actually decide what to watch? Last week, my internet went down for three days. No Netflix, no YouTube, nothing. After the initial panic subsided, something interesting happened. I found myself digging through old DVDs, pulling out a deck of cards, and even cracking open a book I’d been meaning to read for months. It got me thinking about how we used to entertain ourselves before algorithms decided everything for us.

Growing up in Ohio as one of five kids, entertainment wasn’t something that came to us through a screen. We had to create it, find it, or sometimes just stumble into it. And you know what? We were never bored. Not really.

1. They actually went to video rental stores

Remember Blockbuster? That Friday night ritual of wandering the aisles, reading the backs of VHS cases, arguing with your friends or family about what to rent? The whole experience was entertainment in itself. You’d bump into neighbors, get recommendations from the teenager behind the counter who’d seen everything, and sometimes take a chance on that weird foreign film just because the cover looked interesting.

There was something magical about the limitation. You had to commit to your choice. No endless scrolling, no “maybe we should watch something else” ten minutes in. You paid your three bucks, and by God, you were going to watch that movie.

2. Board games were serious business

Every family had that cabinet stuffed with board games. Some with missing pieces, held together with rubber bands and hope. But when the power went out or Sunday afternoons stretched long, out they came. Monopoly games that lasted entire weekends. Risk battles that ended real friendships. Scrabble disputes that required dictionary interventions.

These games taught us patience, strategy, and how to lose gracefully. Or at least how to flip the board dramatically when things weren’t going our way. Either way, valuable life skills.

3. They discovered music through actual humans

Before Spotify’s Discover Weekly, finding new music was a treasure hunt. You’d hear something playing in a record store and ask the clerk what it was. Friends would make you mixtapes with handwritten track lists. Radio DJs actually mattered because they’d play deep cuts and tell you the stories behind the songs.

I still have a box of old cassettes friends made me in college. Each one is like a time capsule, not just of music, but of a relationship, a moment, a person who thought, “You need to hear this.”

4. Reading was the original binge-watching

Do you remember staying up until 3 AM to finish a book? Not because you had to, but because you literally couldn’t put it down? Libraries were our Netflix, except everything was free and nobody judged you for checking out five books at once.

I still read mystery novels before bed. There’s something about holding a physical book, turning actual pages, using a bookmark that’s been in the family for years. No notifications, no “skip intro” button, just you and the story.

5. Conversations lasted hours

Without phones to check, conversations had nowhere to hide. You’d sit on someone’s porch, in a diner, around a kitchen table, and just talk. About everything. About nothing. Stories would meander, branch off, circle back. You’d learn things about people you’d known for years.

My weekly poker game with old friends? We barely play cards. It’s four hours of stories, debates, and the kind of laughter that makes your stomach hurt. No one’s posting about it, no one’s livestreaming it. It just exists in that room, for us.

6. They explored their own neighborhoods

Walking wasn’t just exercise. It was entertainment. You’d discover that weird little shop three blocks over, find a park you never knew existed, stumble upon a street fair or a garage sale. Every walk could become an adventure if you let it.

Kids would leave the house after breakfast and come back when the streetlights came on, with grass stains, scraped knees, and stories about the fort they built or the creek they explored. Entertainment wasn’t delivered to them. They went out and found it.

7. Hobbies were actual hobbies

People collected things. Stamps, coins, baseball cards, whatever. Not to post about them, not to monetize them, just because they enjoyed it. They built model airplanes, learned instruments, did puzzles. The process was the point, not the content it could generate.

When was the last time you did something creative just for the joy of doing it? Not to share, not to document, just to make something with your hands?

8. They made their own fun

Talent shows in living rooms. Elaborate pranks that took weeks to plan. Games you invented with whatever was lying around. We’d turn cardboard boxes into spaceships, blankets into forts, backyards into entire kingdoms.

Growing up without much money meant creativity wasn’t optional. It was survival. That dining room table where we had Sunday dinner? It transformed into everything from a ping-pong table to a stage for puppet shows we’d put on for our parents.

9. They embraced being bored

Here’s the radical one: sometimes people just sat with their thoughts. Stared out windows. Watched clouds. Let their minds wander. Boredom wasn’t an emergency to be immediately fixed. It was just part of life.

And from that boredom came the best ideas. The weirdest conversations. The most creative solutions. When your brain isn’t constantly fed entertainment, it starts making its own.

Final thoughts

Look, I’m not saying we should throw away our Netflix subscriptions and go back to rewinding VHS tapes. But maybe we’ve lost something in having endless entertainment at our fingertips. The anticipation. The commitment. The creativity that comes from limitation.

Next time you find yourself mindlessly scrolling through options, paralyzed by choice, try something different. Pick up that dusty board game. Call that friend you’ve been meaning to catch up with. Take a walk with no destination in mind. You might be surprised by what entertains you when you stop letting algorithms decide.