One of the world’s three great computer shows, Computex Taipei was held at the Taipei World Trade Center in June. It featured innovations in areas such as wearable technology, cloud-based platforms and touch-screen applications that herald a new wave of software and hardware trends.
Since the widespread adoption of Internet technology in the 1990s, human life has been transformed and reimagined. Internet users can chat with people in virtual worlds and summon products from thousands of miles away, and those lacking in status or power have greater capacity to battle the powers that be and mainstream opinion.
Today, with dramatic increases in transmission speeds, the era of everyone having their own mobile device has arrived. The Internet is no longer only about social connectivity and exchange of information. Now it is quietly transforming even the appearance of Internet users.
The witty, silly, over-the-top stickers from Line, an instant messaging app for smartphones, allow Internet users to easily and humorously convey their feelings. Meanwhile, artists and performers without the halo effect that comes with widespread name recognition can leverage Facebook’s fan groups to disseminate their thoughts and creative efforts.
The tremendous connectivity of social networks is having a growing impact on social and political movements both in Taiwan and abroad. In 2011 social networks such as Twitter and Facebook played a major role in both the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia and the Occupy Wall Street movement in the US. In Taiwan the 2006 movement to preserve the Losheng Sanatorium and the 2009 Wild Strawberries movement, as well as recent opposition to the Fourth Nuclear Power Plant and this year’s Sunflower Student Movement, have all demonstrated how Facebook’s “share” and “check in” functions can bolster connectivity to mobilize around political issues.
Moreover, because these new technologies are simple, fun and interactive, they are shepherding across the digital divide a new group of Internet users: the elderly. As seniors share stickers and photographs with young people, they are broadening the base available for social action. George Liu, the founder of Mr. 6 Inc., a provider of Facebook-based marketing services, says that users may at first be somewhat wary of offering political opinions in social groups on Facebook, but once the issues have time to ferment, these groups can bring people together to work toward real-world change, turning Internet users into “netizens.”
Over the last 20 years Internet technology has seeped into every aspect of human life. Today the Internet revolution is moving faster and faster. How can Taiwan stir up the ripples that become the next Internet waves?