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.