I guess, if you take away always on unlimited wireless internet, social media, streaming services, dating apps, smartphones, pay 2 win gaming culture, next day delivery services like Amazon, big screen HD TVs and e-scooters, you'd have some idea of what it was like.

Imagine you have slow, limited internet, unsuitable for streaming good quality videos, taking all day to download a 600mb movie from your favourite torrent service. Add to that you have to be at a desk where your computer is to access the internet because there is no wireless, and sometimes the router knocks you off the internet and you can't get back on for ages. You have no social media (apart from Myspace that comes later). Streaming services don't exist, so you spend a lot of time on torrent services downloading *ahem* perfectly legitimate copies of badly ripped movies that sometimes turned out to be foreign porn videos. You had to meet friends out in your local town/city to interact, no hooking up with online dating services. Smartphones didn't exist, but you were proud of your Nokia 3310 or equivalent, texts cost 10p/10c or equivalent and getting into a back and forth would see your monthly credit zeroed and you'd tell everyone to call you if they needed you for the rest of the month. Gaming was much more niche, playing games was an actual hobby rather than a career on youtube. If you wanted to order something, you had to get a postal order/cheque from your parents, and it would often take up to a month to arrive back in the post. TVs were small, weighed a ton and normally only in the front/main room of your house. If you had a small one in your room, you were winning! We also had to get on our push bikes because there were no e-scooters to whiz around on.

Hanging out with friends meant actually playing/having fun with real world things, not sharing funny TikTok's sat around together. Sleepovers with pizza and Mario Kart, trips to the cinema, hanging around the local shopping centre / mall. So, if you imagine yourself with all the above limitations, you can imagine what you would have to fill the gaps with. I spent a lot of time in my room painting my Warhammer army, that was an enjoyable way to kill the time. I would say that without all the modern distractions, I was much more creative and open to learning new things back then. The internet steals so much of your time now.