In the 1970s, being a student was a completely different experience. Without the internet, smartphones, or personal computers, everything took more time and effort. Research meant heading to the library, sorting through drawers of index cards, and hoping the book you needed was on the shelf. Miss a class? You’d better hope a friend took good notes and that you could actually read their handwriting.
From typewriters and textbooks to waiting your turn on the family phone, school life ran at a slower, more hands-on pace. Getting information or staying in touch wasn’t as easy as a quick search or text message. Here are 17 things students in the ’70s had to deal with long before the digital world took over.
1. Relying on your smart friend
There was no “just Google it” fallback. You had to ask that one friend in class who actually read the textbook.
2. Using a typewriter
Before laptops and word processors, essays were typed on noisy, clunky typewriters. Made a typo? You either had to use correction tape, start the page over, or just live with it.
3. Library card catalogs
Before search bars, students had to manually flip through drawers of index cards to find the location of a book. Welcome to analog scrolling.
4. Memorizing everything
Without Google to help cheat your way through a quiz, you actually had to memorize dates, formulas, and definitions. Kids today could never!
5. Asking parents for help
Parents were the OG search engines, although most of the time they were wildly inaccurate. If you think about it, it was kind of unfair to ask mom and dad to try to remember geometry they learned 20 years prior.
Trending on The Scroller
6. Limited sources
No millions of results in 0.32 seconds. You had books, a stack of printed handouts, and maybe a teacher’s suggestion to go by.
7. Spending hours at the library
The library was the main place to get any new information. Students would spend hours browsing shelves and flipping through pages, something today’s kids may never understand.
8. Group projects without Google Docs
Collaboration meant long phone calls, passing USB drives or floppy disks around, or actually meeting in person.
Sign up for our newsletter
9. Carrying a mountain of textbooks
Today, textbooks can be found online, and the need for them is dwindling, but in the ’70s, students had a thick book for every class. Textbooks claimed the lives of countless backpacks.
10. Being forced to use cursive
Cursive wasn’t just a fun font; it was required. You had to write entire essays in it, and legibility determined your grade. Everyone had that one teacher who said, “You’ll have to use this when you’re older,” and they were wrong.
11. Rewriting papers from scratch
No “copy-paste” or “track changes.” If your teacher wanted revisions, you rewrote the entire thing by hand or retyped it on a typewriter, every single word.
12. Using encyclopedias as a search engine
If you wanted to know something about ancient Egypt or black holes, you had to crack open a giant, dusty volume of Encyclopedia Britannica. And if your set was outdated, it was too bad for you.
13. Handwritten notes only
No Google Docs, no sharing links. You either wrote everything by hand or lost it forever. And if you lost your notebook, you were doomed.
14. Asking the librarian for help
Social anxiety wasn’t a thing in the ’70s because you were forced to ask for help in school. If you were brave, you would ask the all-knowing librarian where to find something. They were the human version of Google; serious, mysterious, and incredibly efficient.
15. Waiting for answers
If you wanted to know how tall the Empire State Building is, or the population of Chicago was, you had to wait until the information presented itself to you. There were no instant answers for kids in the 1970s.
16. Using flashcards for everything
Studying meant writing hundreds of flashcards by hand. If you lost your stack, it was over. Some serious frustration came from rubber bands snapping at the worst times.
17. Checking the dictionary for spelling
Kids today are spoiled with the little red line that pops up when they spell something wrong on their computers. Spellcheck wasn’t built into pens. You had to flip through a real dictionary to check your spelling.
Want to see more content from the 1970s?
Check out 24 Vintage Photos Of Road Trips In the 1960s and 1970s, or take a look at 47 Photos That Prove The 1970s Were Just Better. Finally, if you want to see the ugliest cars from the 1970s, take a look at 20 of the Ugliest Cars From The 1970s.
