I find it entertaining how people think that younger generations don't know what things are.
The majority of teenagers right now could tell you what it is and probably even how it worked.
One reason they know about it is because there's some retro stuff happening, and cassettes are appearing on t-shirts and iPhone cases. Also, "mix tapes" are probably still big, even if they're in a different format.[1]
But I doubt that most teenagers really know much about a cassette. I guess it depends how much we're talking about. They might know it's something that held music. But would they know about C60? Or the prevent-record tab? Or spinning a cassette on a biro to rewind it (or gentle twiddling the biro to wind tape back on after it had despooled)? Would they know about chrome? Would they know that cassettes were double sided?
I'm making a list for my son (he's 2 1/2) of things we do today (and things I did when I was younger) that he might find weird. Cassettes definitely go in that list. "Physical thing? For sound? What bit rate? Wait, what, analogue?". I'm also including the fact that I used to have to chop wood for the fire and that we had a 'party line' (a phone line shared between a number of households with phase based signalling).
3 or 4 years ago I was given an old 8-bit Amstrad home computer, of the type popular when I was at school, plus assorted peripherals and associated junk. I refused to have anything to do with the filthy thing, because it had a Z80 in it, so I passed it to one of my old colleagues to add to his collection. A few days later he told me what his sons made of it. He has two, aged at the time something like 11 and 9. (Their opening comment: "What's in the box? - ohh! A computer from the olden days!" :))
Surprisingly, both correctly figured out what the 3" disks were for.
The younger had never seen a cassette tape before, and didn't know what it was. The elder did know, and even knew how you used it - though as it turned out, this was only because he had had a very similar conversation with a friend's father (though it was a car tape player that time).
There was also a VHS tape in the box. Neither had the first idea what it was.
One reason they know about it is because there's some retro stuff happening, and cassettes are appearing on t-shirts and iPhone cases. Also, "mix tapes" are probably still big, even if they're in a different format.[1]
But I doubt that most teenagers really know much about a cassette. I guess it depends how much we're talking about. They might know it's something that held music. But would they know about C60? Or the prevent-record tab? Or spinning a cassette on a biro to rewind it (or gentle twiddling the biro to wind tape back on after it had despooled)? Would they know about chrome? Would they know that cassettes were double sided?
I'm making a list for my son (he's 2 1/2) of things we do today (and things I did when I was younger) that he might find weird. Cassettes definitely go in that list. "Physical thing? For sound? What bit rate? Wait, what, analogue?". I'm also including the fact that I used to have to chop wood for the fire and that we had a 'party line' (a phone line shared between a number of households with phase based signalling).