Populations were distributed more broadly...kids were expected to work at a younger age...no phone or Internet...apprenticeships at a young age were common...
I guess they still had a few other opportunities...school, picnics, sports, swimming down at the creek, church, civic youth groups, summer camp, etc...
Most of these are also pretty modern things. Long education and leisure time did not exist for most people until somewhere around ons hundred years ago, depending on where you lived. Stuff like boy scouts was not invented until the beginning of the 20th century and it took time for them to become popular across social classes.
Some historian argue that even childhood is a modern invention.