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by Ming Leung, December 2009

Hang a flat plasma display on the living-room and connect it to a wall socket that also taps into the home grid and have another modest display in other room, too, which subscribe the service from pay TV. Also, when leave the bedroom and say "off" to the screen, and then enter the kitchen and say, maybe, to the microwave oven: "Oven, show me my stock numbers." During a commercial on the TV, using a wireless remote to instruct the hidden gateway box to find and download an original Star Trek episode. When the episode ends and grabs the game controller off the coffee table, become Captain Kirk on the plasma screen and engage in a live, on-line dogfight in the Neutral Zone with an opponent from Tokyo.

This seems similar to the life mentioned in Minority Report and I think most likely my mother say "off" to ask me off the screen actually and also I don't why the microwave oven need to connect Internet until now. But anyway, the above scenario quoted by Livingstone [1] is more or less near to my daily life now, 2009.

iPhone, nearly can do all the things mentioned above. On everyday that need to work, the first thing I need to contact is my iPhone, since he is the morning alarm who tell me it is the time back to the hell. If unlucky there is any colleague have sent an "urgent" email into my mailbox the night before, the iPhone will have a smart indication which told me "I'VE GOT ONE NEW EMAIL" at the right-top corner of the email icon. When I see the indication, of course, I will read this email, at least read this very rough even though I still have not brush my teeth in the morning.

Just with this function, iPhone has changed my habit of the reception of the information evolutionally. In the past when the time that the mobile phone is not so advanced, I am wake up by my mobile phone also, but then I can go to the toilet to brush my teeth and change my cloth and take the bus and back to work. Before I change my cloth, I can turn on the TV and watch several minute morning news (also the beauty reporter on TV) and get the current temperature to see if I need to put more cloth or not.

But now, when I bought the iPhone, live is changing.

First, there is an uncertainty that I will receive such "urgent" emails when I just opened my eyes in the morning. If so, I may need to response this BEFORE I back to my working place. Besides, since iPhone is like a toy that I play frequently, so I can get weather report with the application inside to see the tomorrow temperature and have already prepared suitable clothing before I go to bed. In the next morning, the beauty reporter have say bye to me for a long time already since I need not to turn on the TV to get such information anymore. Then how about the news in the morning? Don't worry, Apple Daily can may me happy. There is an application from Apple Daily which can be installed in my iPhone to read the real time news, today newspaper and also "interactive news" from them. In the "interactive news", they have, actually produced some video news since they known the Hong Kong people don't know how to read texts, so they produced these content for them. When I click (actually touch on the iPhone) on the video news, a beautiful young-model appear in my iPhone, this actually the supplement of the newspaper and the beautiful young lady is introducing the shop that selling a fruitful hamburger, so I lost the beauty reporter, but I can get another beautiful lady instead. Technologies changed, sequence of media reception changed, but the content basically not changed. This is just as Livingstone mentioned in the audience research, for new media, basically they are just changed the media they used, but the content is basically the same like the old wine in bottles (p.346) and the media may have different understanding compare to the past, for instance, emails, it is a convenience way for communication with the people far away from my place at the time when it is invented, but in this case, it is a annoying thing for me when I see this in the morning.

Apart from this, Livingstone also mentioned about the changing social and cultural contexts can also shape the audience practices (p.339). In leisure time, I will login to my facebook and see is there any news feed available in my account. These feeds are included, the advertisements from some shop that I go often, update news from newspaper, friend sharing, etc.

Besides checking my email, I will login to my facebook to check is there any updates from these "content provider" periodically. Sometime, if my friend just working not happy on that day, she update her facebook status like: "I want to scream......~", and I then replied: "Go ahead~^^v". So each of us actually is the content provider and the audience in the same time, and checking facebook will become one of the activities in my daily life.

Since the content provider can be actually the same person of the audience, so they are "interactively" affect to each other and this will also shape the content provider and hence the social and cultural contexts can changed in the reversed direction. For instance, by the advanced technology nowadays that nearly all the mobile phones have a camera to shot the photos. This will have the "environment protection problem" in my experience: I having lunch with colleague in one afternoon, when the lemongrass pork chop is come and he suddenly take photos for this pork chop with his mobile phone. Actually I cannot see any problem of the dish so I asked why need to do this and he replied: "It so cute!" (Come on, how come a lemongrass pork chop is so cute!??) After a day, I see he really posted that photo on the facebook and tag me beside the pork chop. (actually I cannot see any part of my body but just the shadow)

In the example above, my interpretation of such activities is that: since there is already a new media platform available for use, and he, my colleague, when he as an audience from other facebook account, he feel interesting about these content and want to create one also, but he have no content available to share and the mobile phone is a convenience capture device and so he shoot all the things in his daily life, since the digital camera need not to pay for the film, and "share" to the friend in the facebook. These shared content, actually have no meaning and wasted the power of the mobile phone, wasted the storage space on facebook, etc. (so that why I called this is a environment protection problem) But unluckily, he is not a special case in Hong Kong and I have seen so many such "cute" things in my facebook account already. And since he is not a special case in Hong Kong, if you can observe a little bit detail in the place around us, you will very easy to find these activities occur even though when a couple making love on the bed, they are also need to take a mobile phone out for this, so that why I say it is reversely changing the society and cultural contexts by the audience.

As conclude, I not talking about the technologies which carry many bad things to my daily life, (actually I like to use my iPhone), the problem is about the audience/user how to use these technologies/media as McLuhan mentioned in his book. It is not the fault of the email tools but is the sender that find people in the night if the stuff is not really urgent, but still keep in the old mindset that sent the email in the night and think the receiver will open the email when he back office tomorrow. Besides, I think the "environment protection problem" cannot be solved since the society have already get use to put these "interesting" content and the audience are like to see this, it is a part of the daily life and cannot be back already, so nothing can say and just like my title "..."

Remarks
[1] The paragraph I quoted from Livingstone which I have modified a little bit and she have not mentioned about the microwave oven actually

References
Livingstone, Sonia. "The changing nature of audiences — From the mass audience to the interactive media user." A Companion to Media Studies. Wiley-Blackwell, 2003. 337-359.