I really don't like living in the era of smartphones. I wish I was born a few decades earlier living a peaceful life.

You would still be yourself.

As a pretty normie kid, back without internet and smartphones, lfe certainly was different, yeah.

We had a daily screen time limit of 1hr, some lazy parents would let the TV deal with their kid, so this was good.

Going to a friend to watch TV or play vidya was an option though. Still, that required to be social.

There was a lot of stupid shit to do outside actually as a kid, or kids.

Often social, giving most kids a decent set of social skills.

Of course outsiders still existed, so your mileage may have varied.

Yeah but without friends, you'd be super bored all the time, and I don't think anyone here has irl friends

I get what you mean, smartphones have supercharged the world to move and react faster to more input then our brains can realistically handle for extended periods of time. Leading to mental fatigue and burnout from the relentless bombardment of advertising, social uproars, and hackneyed trends. That said, it is not the phone's fault, it's the user. No one is forcing you to use the smartphone as an interface for your life. It is a convenient tool, and ironically I think the least used feature today is the actual telephone, but it's no panacea replacing reality.