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Meeting “The One” At Midnight Is Your Destiny: The Role Of Yuan In Use Of The Taiwanese Social Network, Dcard, Wen-Yueh Shu

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This study examines how Taiwanese college students understand the traditional, culturally Chinese concept of Yuan and its role in their use of a new and distinctive Taiwanese social networking site—Dcard. Particular attention is paid to the Dcard’s unique friending mechanism, which provides users the opportunity to connect (or not) with one, seemingly random new friend each day at midnight. Through thematic analysis of 15 semi-structured long interviews, the study finds that Dcard users understand Yuan as a multi-faceted concept pertaining primarily to interpersonal relationships (relationalism). Users perceive Yuan to influence relationships in a predetermined, causal fashion (fatalism), but they still …