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The original was posted on /r/nostupidquestions by /u/g3nerallycurious on 2023-09-01 01:12:36.
Asking elder millennials or older on this one.
Nowadays anyone not with a group is staring at their phone the whole time - many times me included. Did strangers talk to each other, or just keep to themselves and stare at the wall, or what? I grew up without internet, but smartphones became ubiquitous around my drinking age, so I have no idea what it was like sitting at a bar by yourself before smartphones.
Edit: so it sounds like newspapers and books were traded for smartphones. I cannot imagine brining a book to a bar. I’ve been drinking for over a decade and I’ve never seen someone bring a newspaper to the bar, and I could probably count on one hand the amount of times someone brought a book to a bar.