I was watching a tutorial with my partner a few days ago on how to set up and record a podcast using Garage Band. It was hosted by some nextgen techie guy, late twenties, early thirties at the most. He was showing us how to record tracks, assemble tracks, overlay tracks, record master intros and outtakes, etc., and then upload the podcast to another site that would smooth out any audio bumps, making the end result sound quite professional.
I couldn't help thinking, while watching this (and all the other tech tutorials I've seen, over the last few years) that back in the day we didn't have to know all this stuff.
See, back then if you wanted to record something, you just popped a cassette tape into the recorder/player (after cleaning the recording heads with isopropol alcohol first, of course), hit 'record' and that was it! If you were 'high tech' the cassette unit had sound level meters on it that showed you if your source was too quiet or too loud and maybe there was an equalizer too so you could set the ranges of bass, mid, and treble. Brotha, that was it. There was no 'post production'. What you recorded was what your equipment laid down and most times you were happy with it. Sometimes you might have been dismayed by the sound quality but then, after some agonizing, decided “Good enough for me!”. But if the sound quality was too bad you had to start over. You’d pop in a blank cassette, restart the source, then try to record the piece again, if possible. Ugh! That was work!
A similar process occured in the taking of pictures. Load the film(!) into the camera, aim, set the focus, then push the button (and use the flash if it was dark). That was it! For the relatively few professionals there were 'high tech' cameras that had different kinds of lenses, filters you could buy to put over those lenses, innumerable books you could read about how to capture light by playing with the 'f stop' setting (which I think moderated the amount of light going into the lens) plus you could fiddle with exposure times. All that was like going to school big time on the subject and even if you did you always had to wait for the results of your efforts because film had to be developed and that took loads of time. Also, buying film wasn't cheap. Most dedicated photographers had their own developing labs at home so they could save dough, hurry up the process, and do the developing themselves so their precious shots wouldn't be muddled up by some ordinary lab guy. Their darkrooms were full of bottles and trays of nasty chemicals, were strangely red light illuminated, and the development process called for the wearing of rubber gloves and aprons. Taking pictures was a mysterious full-blown science project for the pros. Believe you me- ordinary people were nowheres near as driven.
What am I, an audio engineer?
Steve Harvey- Unsplash.com
Interacting with music was another low tech environment for most people, one that was very user friendly. It didn't involve negotiating I Tunes, creating Playlists, and organizing libraries through the use of digital files and folders. Music didn't get put into any virtual folders. You put your music (your albums, cassettes, and later, CD's) into paper folders or plastic cases and then put those onto physical shelves or into portable cases where you could easily find them. Things weren't hidden offscreen to be 'pulled up' by double tapping the screen, swiping this, or toggling that to reveal the secret compartments they’re in (and that you're always overjoyed to find). "Aha! There's the 'toolbar'! Now what do I do?"
Wasn't any of that stuff. You simply turned on the HiFi phono system/eight track/cassette player/CD player, loaded your music, then pressed play or you turned on the radio and listened to whatever was playing. There were no choosy Pandora, Spotify, or Sirius satellite radio audio ‘platforms’. On/off, volume, and channel tuning were the only choices you had. (Bass, midrange, and treble controls were for 'audiophiles').
Phones. I remember using rotary dial phones. One that I used was on a 'party line' shared by three other customers, who could listen in on your conversation by simply picking up the phone! (If you were talking to somebody and heard a 'click' on the line, that meant be careful about what you were saying because somebody else had just picked their phone up off the cradle). Next came push button phones- an 'upgrade'! Cell phones were far off sci-fi fantasies. Landline phones were all we had and telephones were for making phone calls only. It was no-brainer low technology.
Maps! More low tech. Paper maps were how people navigated. Yeah, they were clumsy things, hard to fold, and weren't always up to date but things weren't changing that fast (there certainly weren't any current restaurant reviews being offered up in 'sidebars'!). Sometimes we had fancy maps that showed us where some of the restaurants (paid advertisers) were actually located in town. These enhanced maps were found in physical racks outside of the hotel you were staying at (No airbnb, VRBO, Flip Key, Home Away, etc. yet).
Nextgen peeps might be shocked at how we were so limited but the tradeoff was that life in a lot of ways was easier. There wasn't much to have to think about. Not a lot was expected of people because it was impossible to be tech savvy. We didn't have computers and with those, the software, apps, and all their navigating tools. But nowadays the computers, apps, and tools have shown up (Hello!) like overnight and are being exploited by many internet explorers to the max. (I suppose if we woulda had 'em we would have done the same).
So this guy that was sharing the video about Garage Band that we watched? He didn't know what life used to be like decades ago. He had grown up in a time where having all this techie device knowledge was simply expected. He had absolutely no resistance to being repeatedly burdened by the learning duty that tech continuously demands, a resistance that people of the older generation have in spades 'cuz we remember! We remember how easy life was but the nextgen peeps don't so they take on these incredibly complex tasks and are actually upbeat while doing them! Never grumbling at all! Every time I see this it's like witnessing a miracle.
I have seen that this acquiesence phenomenon is not just isolated to techies, though. Across the board the nextgen is universally on board with tech. This is because there exists within their cerebral cortexes no prior knowledge of the low-tech world. They assume that interactions with devices have always been this way and have seamlessly adapted a baseline normality worldview but what lies hidden from them, like one of their pull down toolbars, is a glaring generational anomaly plainly seen by their elders!
I find their kind of thinking amazing. A few examples:
"Pictures? Take ordinary pictures? Why not produce a movie?! Here- let me show you how!"
"Listen to a Podcast? Why not start one? I'll school you on all of the controls of the recording studio!"
"Make a Phone call? Why not digitally record your experiences, upload them to your You Tube channel, and build a following? A large enough one enables you to monetize your content and that can earn you more green than you've made in the last five years. I did that and made bank before I even hit thirty! Since then I have evolved to where I do not even have the concept of going to work. Work doesn't exist for me. My numerous streams of passive income allow me to 'work' only on projects that interest me and I work remotely. All I need to do that is a few devices and a solid WiFi connection. Think I'll go live... …ANYWHERE!”
Okay. This 'downplaying and dismissal of complexity' mindset takes a little bit of getting used to! But, results talk and these young techies (and capitalists) are showing me The New Way. Though I'm old gen and don't need the dough so much anymore I figure what the heck, it's game on with me. I’ll try to overcome my conditioning and get up to speed.
Just gotta get over that resistance.