The other related phenomenon is "I dont believe culture and society can change, so I pick something I am vaguely aware of existing in the past. The people who are old enough to be there know the comparison makes no sense, but it allow me to stop the discussion about change".

Like, there was some reading of newspapers and magazines, but not that much. They were large, you know. Most people stared silently out of the window. Multiple people reading newspapers on the bus would be rare occurrence. And it was NOT noisy unlike tiktok video.