It might be hard to fathom, but there was a time when we didn\u2019t have the luxury of doomscrolling to keep us occupied, both in between classes and after the school bell tolled. If you\u2019re on the receiving end of this electronics embargo, it\u2019s not the end of the world. Here\u2019s a glimpse of what a typical school day looked like back then, without the constant buzz of Telegram pings and Instagram DMs.<\/p>\n
7AM<\/p>\n
Listening to music with dedicated MP3 players on the bus\/train to school<\/p>\n
No changes here, lessons pretty much started around the same time as they do today, around 7.30am, which meant we had to be well on our way to school at the crack of dawn. Unless you hitched a ride from your parents, much like most working adults on the Little Red Dot, public buses and trains remained the de facto mode of transport for students.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s where our commutes differed. After tapping in with our superior, pre-SimplyGO EZ Link cards<\/a>, we couldn\u2019t muffle the rumble of the bus engine or the clanging of MRT trains against the tracks with our favourite tunes on Spotify. It would be a couple more years till music streaming platforms took off, but that didn\u2019t stop us from jamming out en route to school.<\/p>\n It might sound absurd, but before our phones could do everything and then some, we used to have separate devices for listening to music, and Walkmans and iPods were all the rage. I remember whipping out the former on the daily, as dubiously downloaded tracks like JB\u2019s Eenie Meenie and Replay by Iyaz awakened me from my groggy stupor.<\/p>\n 7.30AM<\/p>\n Having the finesse to secretly text during silent reading period<\/p>\n Believe it or not, not-so-smart phones existed before the era of iPhones and Androids, and we also got caught up in our fair share of handphone-related mischief. Of course, not all of us wanted to immerse ourselves in a good book during the silent reading period<\/a> that most schools had before morning assembly, so we passed the time through other means. But, I daresay we earned the right to avoid the monotony of reading.<\/p>\n You see, discreetly texting your friends required much more finesse when your phone came without a touchscreen, as you had to rely on buttons on a physical keypad to do the job. In fact, a single \u201cLOL\u201d required you to punch 3 buttons a total of 9 times, and still, the most skilled of tactile texters could send out messages without having to glance at their digits.<\/p>\n On a slight tangent, students of today have the option to do their reading via eBooks through Personal Learning Devices issued by schools, which is a godsend. Throughout my 4 years in secondary school, when physical reading material was a must, I\u2019d seen egregious substitutes for books when students neglected to pack theirs.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Think issues of Reader\u2019s Digest torn down the spine in half to \u201cshare\u201d with a forgetful friend and stray pages of newspaper reporting week-old happenings. We sometimes even busted out ol\u2019 reliable: the very textbooks that we were already going to flip open in about 20 minutes\u2019 time when lessons started.<\/p>\n 11AM<\/p>\n Having our meals without videos & playing sports, all within 30 minutes<\/p>\n Honestly, I think the new rule of students not being able to use their smartphones during recess is a bit much. It\u2019s the only pocket of time that they get to take their eyes off the whiteboard and worksheets, so what they do with their 40 minutes of reprieve should be up to them, all within other more reasonable school rules of course.<\/p>\n Eating without being able to watch videos on the side is a fate I wouldn\u2019t wish on my worst enemy, but we still managed to make our recess count without the aid of smartphones. The more active dudes would grab a quick bite before sprinting over to the field to have a short kickabout or the basketball court to impress their eye candy with flashy dribbles. And yes, they would return back to class with uniforms that were sopping wet and skin slick with sweat.<\/p>\n As for the girls, they couldn\u2019t yap their way through geography period, so they let it all out during recess, sparing no juicy detail when it came to who was allegedly dating whom. The stories must\u2019ve been ultra-captivating; I just checked in with my colleague, and she can remember her lovelorn friend\u2019s crush 15 years on, full government name and all. Blogshops were also mighty popular back then, and I recall seeing some entrepreneurial classmates packing orders during their free time to make some extra pocket money.<\/p>\n Looking back, some of us only received our first smartphones later on in our secondary school journey, and even then, they were limited in their capabilities, especially data-wise. Affordable mobile plans with tens of GB of data were unheard of, so we had to get by with a meagre gigabyte or 2 a month. I remember rationing data like wartime provisions; forget to turn it off before loading a YouTube video, and you\u2019ll have angry parents on your tail for racking up an insane phone bill.<\/p>\n 12PM<\/p>\n Getting through the last hours of school by passing notes<\/p>\n With most of the school day behind us, you would think the remaining few periods would go by just like that, but on the contrary, it was the last hour or 2 that were the most gruelling. The post-lunch coma was brutal, and as the teachers droned on about algebraic functions, all we could think about was hitting the malls right after school.<\/p>\n Again, no smartphones meant no secretly booting up Instagram Stories to catch up on your friends\u2019 escapades in class to while the time away. No-look texters could get by with working their magic under the desk, away from the teachers\u2019 gaze, to SMS their mates, but for the rest of us, we resorted to a more archaic means of communication \u2013 passing notes.<\/p>\n The thrill of passing around handwritten notes was unmatched, especially if you were chatting up someone you fancied. Larger friend groups also got in on the act too, turning scraps of paper into full-blown chat rooms to talk about anything under the sun. Chat logs would go on till lessons ended, or when we were caught in the act because Jun Jie was a tad slow on the draw passing around the makeshift group chat.<\/p>\n If texting wasn\u2019t your thing, we\u2019d also take extended toilet breaks to converse face-to-face. Exchange a couple of darting glances towards the classroom door, ask to be excused to the toilet, and you were soon joined by your BFF for an impromptu lepak session.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not sure what went down in the ladies\u2019, but sometimes a trip to the gents\u2019 was truly eye-opening. Students who were bored out of their minds would fling wads of wet toilet paper onto the ceiling, and even conduct sparring matches complete with referees, so if you were a poor lad who genuinely had to go during one of those, best of luck.<\/p>\n 2PM<\/p>\n Hitting the theatres for cheap movies & arcades for cure neoprints<\/p>\n It\u2019s 2pm, which means school\u2019s finally out, so unless you\u2019ve got remedial classes or CCAs, you\u2019ve still got the better part of the day to catch up on homework or binge-watch the latest season of Stranger Things. Unfortunately, we didn\u2019t have the wonders of streaming services at our fingertips, but we did have our own means of entertaining ourselves.<\/p>\n The movies were a hotspot as we could catch flicks for cheap \u2013 flash your pass for student discounts<\/a>, and you\u2019d be able to snag a ticket and popcorn bundle for well under $10. LAN shops also drew in students by the masses, but you had to change out of your uniform before they let you in. We\u2019d spend hours gaming the afternoon away, queuing up rounds of DOTA 2 and L4D2.<\/p>\n![\"MP3](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image3-2.png\")
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Image credit: u\/LemoLuke via Reddit<\/p>\n![\"School](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image9-1.png\")
Image credit: Yuhua Secondary School<\/p>\n![\"Students](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image7.jpg\")
Image credit: @indeponline via Instagram<\/p>\n![\"Old](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image6-1.png\")
Image credit: SocialBarrel<\/p>\n![\"Passing](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/image5-1.png\")
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