行動傳播研究發展之初探

A Preliminary Exploration of the Development of Mobile Communication Research

Due to rapid changes in communication technology, mobile communication technology continues to thrive, leading to the current prevalence of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. According to the latest survey done by eMarket (2016) in September 2016, the Asia-Pacific region has the highest proportion of smartphone users among the entire global population, with the proportion of smartphone users among the national population in Taiwan (73.4%) being the highest in the world, followed by Singapore (71.8%) and South Korea (70.4%), all of which have significantly greater proportions than those of the United States (63.9%) and mainland China (43.8%). Moreover, the Groupe Speciale Mobile Association (GSMA) (2017) estimates that the number of global mobile subscribers will exceed 5 billion in 2017. In addition, the “Digital in 2017 Global Overview” report from “We Are Social” (wearesocial.com) and “Hootsuite” (hootsuite.com) reveal a substantial growth in the number of Internet users. Furthermore, more than 90% of the Internet users in the world are found to use smartphones to surf the Internet (Tech in Asia, 2017). It is interesting to note that, due to the popularity of smartphones, more than half of web traffic is generated through smartphones (Tech in Asia, 2017).