Last month, a Gen Z Redditor (kittyprincessxX) posed one very interesting question: “What did Singaporean teenagers do for fun before social media and smartphones etc?”

“I’ve been wondering what life was like as a Singaporean teenager before all the screens. What did you all do after school or on weekends? Where and how did people hang out or make plans without group chats or IG stories? What was the “in” thing to do/ places to go?” she continued in her Reddit post.

Her post received a barrage of enthusiastic answers from millennials and Gen X-ers. 

First, to answer her question about how people used to make plans without having a handphone.

Many agreed they would simply decide on a MRT stop to meet at during a specific time. Others would make plans to meet in the “last cabin” with one party hopping off the train should the other not appear in time.

Some would also use pagers to notify their friends if they were unable to make a gathering. A pager, if you're not in the age bracket where you experience back pain, is a wireless, pocket-sized communication device that allows the user to receive short messages.

Netizens reminisced about the toys of yesteryear, like Tomiya cars, Beyblades, trading cards, and popular computer games like Neopets and Maple Story also got special mentions. Of course, one can’t forget about the expensive trips to arcades, too.

While the sporty teenagers hung out at playgrounds, void decks and open areas to ride their bicycles, roller skate, and play ball games like basketball and football, others would head to town to “loiter”, take neoprints, or simply people watch.

Book lovers would browse through books at Borders, while those into music would often hang out at Citilink or The Heeren’s HMV. Sadly, both retail chains do not exist in Singapore anymore.

As one netizen summed up: “Go out in the real world.”

“But seriously, hang out at neighbourhood malls after school doing nothing. Watch movies with classmates. Go all the way to Orchard just to eat chicken rice ‘cos it was the only thing we could afford. Go to the arcade when it was actually fun and not just about claw machines and trading in tickets,” they recalled.

Other netizens also reminisced about the times they used to chat with their friends via MSN, and how they would yap with their friends on the phone until they were scolded by their parents for racking up the phone bill. 

“Life was so much [more] colourful back then without gadgets,” declared one Redditor, who also added that despite having “no photos or videos to show off” how lives used to be back then, they “really lived it”.

Many agreed it was simply fun to hang out with their friends in person instead of keeping tabs on them through social media. It didn’t matter what they did together — just the act of being in each others’ company was time well spent.

The OP, who is a 1999 baby, later followed up with how life was for her as a teen. Needless to say, it was a huge contrast. 

“We all had smartphones so selfies were huge! Macbook selfies were super cute or Camwow app, or anything that had cute filters,” she wrote, adding that at that time, Facebook was already “phasing out as a boomer app”.

Instagram, Snapchat, Tumbler, and Vine were already popular, as were YouTubers.

She also recalled popular shopping spots for girls, which included shops like Forever 21, Forever New, Victoria’s Secret, and Accessorize.

She probably wouldn’t be able to recall the time when we had to use a dial-up connection to use the Internet, or when we had to scream at our sibling to put down ‘the other phone’ when we were chatting with a friend on the landline.

Neither would she be able to relate to this comment: “I remember trying to bluetooth download songs into my mp4.”

But we suppose that’s exactly what makes these memories all the more special. TikTok who?

Photos: Noel Ariola Rosales/ Facebook, Pinterest, GirlStyle Singapore, ebay, Yelp, Reddit/ kittyprincessxX