Society in general was just structurally much different back then. I’m projecting a lot from anecdotes from my parents and other elders, and so it’s a fairly limited sample of life in the outer suburbs of London & Dublin. But…

Church and community groups played a much larger role. Sport was still as popular. You might “go see a show” but it seemed like a much bigger deal than going to the movies is today.

My earlier comment wasn’t about people having something to talk about. It was that people were able to talk about an experience they both shared. Regularly. Like every week, if not every day (about watched they watched the previous night).

I think maybe the other observation here is that before TV people were more likely to actually experience things together with others, and not just talk about them after the fact. Way out of my wheelhouse here though as I’m no historian.

>You might “go see a show” but it seemed like a much bigger deal than going to the movies is today.

I'm not sure that's true. The studio system in Hollywood churned out a huge number of movies.

Today (and really for a long time) my sense has been that going to the movies tends to be about younger people on dates, getting together with friends for a fairly low effort, not too expensive activity. And, probably for this reason, from what I can tell cinema attendance has sprung back better than a lot of people expected.

This is just an anecdote, but one of my favorite parts about reading Devil In The White City was the social aspect the World's Fair had on Chicago. The people of Chicago were very personally invested in winning the bid and making it a success because it was part of their city's identity, which in turn was a part of their identity. They wanted to show other cities that Chicago was able to do great things just like New York or Paris. It became a big part of general life for people in Chicago during that time.

Radio, and before that, newspapers, the local sports teams, gossip about town.

Radio