Taipei
Boom! in Taiwan
As Taiwan enters its super-aged era in 2025, a quiet revolution is unfolding – its baby boomers are going online in record numbers. From LINE chats to mobile payments, seniors are embracing the digital world like never before. But with new freedoms come new risks. The Boom! project dives into this digital awakening, exploring how older adults can stay connected, informed, and in control. Can creative aging and digital literacy reshape the future for Taiwan’s elders?
The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of digital technologies across all age groups, including Taiwan’s post-war baby boomers (born 1946–1964), who are now entering their senior years. In 2025, Taiwan will officially become a “super-aged society,” with over 20% of its population aged 65 and above. According to the 2024 Taiwan Elderly Situation Survey, internet usage in this age group rose from 26.52% in 2017 to 50.36% in 2022, with 43.12% using the internet daily or nearly every day. Popular online activities include communication via LINE and Facebook, video calls, gaming, music, online learning, shopping, mobile payments, and telemedicine.
This growing digital engagement among the “silver-aged” presents both opportunities and challenges. While many seniors are becoming more confident with digital tools, they also face risks such as scams and misinformation. There is a clear need for accessible, user-centered digital literacy programs that empower older adults to navigate technology safely and meaningfully. These efforts must go beyond basic skills and also support self-expression, relevance, and active participation in a rapidly evolving digital world.
The Boom! project, initiated by Tactical Tech, emphasizes empowering users through the principles of ‘In Tune, In Touch, In Control.’ This approach addresses such issues as digital immersion and related loneliness, accuracy and flow of information (fake news, online influence, conspiracy theories, generative AI), digital interaction (social media, data collection, personalized content), and digital decision-making (scams, phishing, behavioral induction mechanisms). Through community participation, creative production, and research, the project aims to explore the digital challenges and opportunities faced by Taiwan’s older population.
The project seeks to collaboratively develop essential digital toolkits that foster enhanced dialogue and understanding between older individuals and their digital environment. It also incorporates the concept of “social prescribing,” emphasizing the importance of individual awareness in managing personal health. By including the approaches of “creative aging” and “service design,” the project invites older adults aged 65 and above to talk about their fears, dependencies, and expectations regarding digital technology and collaboratively create tailored solutions.
Using service design tools combined with interactive art-based methods, this project invites older adults to create their own personalized “social prescriptions” – strategies for staying up-to-date, building connections, and controlling their digital futures. Data and outcomes from the workshops will inform the presentation in November.
Throughout May 2025, 20 participants took part in four interactive workshops and kept digital diaries, reflecting on their relationships with technology – from social media and mobile payments to digital health and AI. Activities included storytelling, empathy mapping, sharing memories through personal objects, and speculative design using AI-generated imagery.
The outcomes of these workshops shaped the exhibition Boom! Equal Access, presented from November 15 to December 7, 2025 at C-Lab. Centered on the experiences and reflections of seniors aged 65 and above, the exhibition explores how they navigate a rapidly digitalizing world—where they are among the most active internet users yet often left behind by a pace of technological change that does not consider their needs.
Through art, design, data storytelling, and participatory installations, Boom! Equal Access transforms the exhibition space into a “public living room”— a place where audiences can experience the flow of information, listen to digital life stories, and reflect on the logic behind data, trust, and participation. By creating a platform for intergenerational dialogue, the exhibition reframes the digital world not just as a technical domain, but as something deeply social, human, and shared.
Tactical Tech
Medium Well [service designer Ni-Hsuan Chou (Kate)]
This growing digital engagement among the “silver-aged” presents both opportunities and challenges. While many seniors are becoming more confident with digital tools, they also face risks such as scams and misinformation. There is a clear need for accessible, user-centered digital literacy programs that empower older adults to navigate technology safely and meaningfully. These efforts must go beyond basic skills and also support self-expression, relevance, and active participation in a rapidly evolving digital world.
The Boom! project, initiated by Tactical Tech, emphasizes empowering users through the principles of ‘In Tune, In Touch, In Control.’ This approach addresses such issues as digital immersion and related loneliness, accuracy and flow of information (fake news, online influence, conspiracy theories, generative AI), digital interaction (social media, data collection, personalized content), and digital decision-making (scams, phishing, behavioral induction mechanisms). Through community participation, creative production, and research, the project aims to explore the digital challenges and opportunities faced by Taiwan’s older population.
The project seeks to collaboratively develop essential digital toolkits that foster enhanced dialogue and understanding between older individuals and their digital environment. It also incorporates the concept of “social prescribing,” emphasizing the importance of individual awareness in managing personal health. By including the approaches of “creative aging” and “service design,” the project invites older adults aged 65 and above to talk about their fears, dependencies, and expectations regarding digital technology and collaboratively create tailored solutions.
Using service design tools combined with interactive art-based methods, this project invites older adults to create their own personalized “social prescriptions” – strategies for staying up-to-date, building connections, and controlling their digital futures. Data and outcomes from the workshops will inform the presentation in November.
Throughout May 2025, 20 participants took part in four interactive workshops and kept digital diaries, reflecting on their relationships with technology – from social media and mobile payments to digital health and AI. Activities included storytelling, empathy mapping, sharing memories through personal objects, and speculative design using AI-generated imagery.
The outcomes of these workshops shaped the exhibition Boom! Equal Access, presented from November 15 to December 7, 2025 at C-Lab. Centered on the experiences and reflections of seniors aged 65 and above, the exhibition explores how they navigate a rapidly digitalizing world—where they are among the most active internet users yet often left behind by a pace of technological change that does not consider their needs.
Through art, design, data storytelling, and participatory installations, Boom! Equal Access transforms the exhibition space into a “public living room”— a place where audiences can experience the flow of information, listen to digital life stories, and reflect on the logic behind data, trust, and participation. By creating a platform for intergenerational dialogue, the exhibition reframes the digital world not just as a technical domain, but as something deeply social, human, and shared.
Partners:
C-LAB (Taiwan Contemporary Culture Lab)Tactical Tech
Medium Well [service designer Ni-Hsuan Chou (Kate)]
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Han-fang Wang
Independent Curator, Art Writer
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Wu Dar-kuen
Artist, Curator, Director of C-LAB
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Marek Tuszynski
Executive Director & Co-Founder Tactical Tech
