What did people do in the 1970s, before the internet?

I've always been interested in life before the internet. I've read that people drank cloudy beer, polished their shoes and kept quiet on Sundays. Did my Dad have a chopper bicycle, turned up jeans and throws stones at steam trains with his chums? I don't how people thrived in the Cold War years, or how people died in coal mines or unwanted babies got 'put up for adoption'. Tell us about the 1970s - what did you do in your leisure time... did you have any?


Road-bowling 1978 Video link
In a small village in County Tyrone near the County Armagh border - to watch a traditional road bowling contest. Road Bowling is an ancient sport, where contestants take turns to hurl an iron ball (called a bullet) along country roads. The bowler who reaches the end of the course in the fewest throws is the victor. Spectators line the route, and need to keep a close eye on the action in order to stay clear of the hurtling iron "bullets".
They bought playboy mags at the general store and wanked off dropping on thier flairs ..that's one component !
 
Ah yes, the 1970's.
Going to a Comprehensive school, wearing school uniform. Taking an interest in the lass in class with the big chest, showers after sport. Three day working week, bread and dripping. Mum chucking you out of the house, don't come back till teatime. Teen years, understanding the sounds coming from your parents bedroom. Dad buying my first pint when I was 17, adult mags under your mattress. VHS adult movies with the words, "wait till we've gone to bed, put it back in my work bag when you've finished."
 
I went to a Catholic high school in the 70's. As it turns out all my classmates got molested by the teachers at the school. Except me. Hey, what am I? Dog meat?
 
I've always been interested in life before the internet. I've read that people drank cloudy beer, polished their shoes and kept quiet on Sundays. Did my Dad have a chopper bicycle, turned up jeans and throws stones at steam trains with his chums? I don't how people thrived in the Cold War years, or how people died in coal mines or unwanted babies got 'put up for adoption'. Tell us about the 1970s - what did you do in your leisure time... did you have any?


Road-bowling 1978 Video link
In a small village in County Tyrone near the County Armagh border - to watch a traditional road bowling contest. Road Bowling is an ancient sport, where contestants take turns to hurl an iron ball (called a bullet) along country roads. The bowler who reaches the end of the course in the fewest throws is the victor. Spectators line the route, and need to keep a close eye on the action in order to stay clear of the hurtling iron "bullets".
We lived a normal life. Had landlines. People werenโ€™t on the phone all the time no mater where you were. But, we still had funโ€ฆwent to bars, moviesโ€ฆand yes, had real sex.
 
I was a kid in a working-class area in England in the 70s. You read books, bought comics, played with your mates in the street - football, rounders, usually - until it got dark, built dens, climbed trees, went to the sweet shop. My older siblings listened to vinyl records or cassettes. Saturday morning television was a thing because that when you got all of the TV programmes intended for kids. Sundays were dead - everywhere closed and TV was boring stuff for adults. Video recorders only really became widespread at the end of the 1970s, so if something was on TV and you missed it, that was it - there was just no mechanism for seeing it again, which meant certain programmes were the highlights of the week, like Doctor Who and Top of the Pops.

Obviously the 70s were an entire decade which changed as it progressed, and experiences were different, as they are now, depending on your individual circumstances.
Sounds pretty much like this side of the pond, too, and not too different twenty years earlier.
 
As a kid in the 70s, we weren't really allowed inside the house before supper, and generally not before the street lights came on in the evening. No internet, no DVDs, no VHS/Beta tapes readily available. Just the old cinema screens where 100 of you and your neighbours would watch the same movie in a dark room together.
Read a lot of books, comics, and rode bicycles to get places. And polyester clothing was very popular!
 
Actually the 70โ€™s were a lot of fun. No internet, cell phones, or VHS yet. Only a few channels on tv. The only pocket electronics was a calculator or an am/fm transistor radio.

But it was the height of the sexual revolution. Birth control, casual sex. AIDS and HIV were not yet a factor. In the rare event you caught something, penicillin could cure it.

In the early 70โ€™s I was in college in Boston. Girls would hitchhike without fear. Sex on a first date was acceptable. Grass was prevalent. Sex clubs were coming into fashion. Porn was becoming more mainstream with Deep Throat and Behind the Green Door. Rock music was at its peak. Stones, Zeppelin. Obesity wasnโ€™t an epidemic.

Towards the late 70โ€™s I would go to sex clubs, fuck strangers with my girlfriend. Bareback of course.

Looking back, the socioeconomic situation wasnโ€™t that good, high unemployment, gas lines, Viet Nam war winding down, but American technology was the envy of the world, and the sex was never better or freer of consequences.

And We lived in a real world rather than a virtual one.
 
Rode bike and minibikes and go-karts. Played outside a lot flew kites. Tag hide and seek, school dances ๐Ÿ˜• well not me.
 
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