What was life like for young people before cell phones, before Facebook and blogs, before Instagram and Snapchat, Twitter and Tumblr … before kids spent hours exercising their thumbs, sitting on a chair or lying on a bed or sofa, playing video games and texting?

So I asked some of my over-60 friends what life was like when they were young. What did they remember doing, especially during summers, in their spare time — time spent without 24/7 news, before smartphones, basically before the technological revolution?

My friend Sorelle, who grew up in Chicago and still lives there, remembers playing jump rope, roller skating and, on rainy days, making puppets out of clothes pins.

“Waxing my dad’s car, sitting around the dinner table with my siblings and parents having actual discussions; the

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