Trick Eye Museum opens in Mexico

There’s no doubt that social media is changing the world and the way we do business.  With posts and stories, retweets and likes, our personal lives are less private than ever.

And that’s having an effect on business, particularly in Mexico, where one new venture views smartphones as a requirement.

CGTN’s Alasdair Baverstock reports. 

Look closely and you’ll notice them. Social media monuments, appearing across today’s urban landscape. They are props for targeted online ads.

Social media is changing the way companies work, with online engagement more key than ever.

Now, in Mexico City, there’s a business where a smartphone is a prerequisite.

The Trick Eye Museum is the first 3-D interactive museum aimed entirely at offering visitors content for their social media.

Upon arrival, visitors download a dedicated smartphone app, before touring the museum.

It’s the 10th of its kind in the world, but originating in northeast Asia, it’s the first to open in the Americas.

The museum has been a success since it opened last year, attracting thousands of visitors every week posing for pictures among the exhibits.

According to Leobardo Hernandez, a digital analyst, Mexico is among the world’s largest per capita users of social media.

Yet, in a country where personal information published online is often used by organized crime to commit robberies, extortions and kidnapping, he says the speed at which technology has developed has outpaced online security.

According to Mexican media, social networks are organized crime’s principal source of information on targets.

“One hundred percent of Mexicans with internet access have a profile on at least one social media platform. And while society has adapted very easily to the benefits that it brings, we haven’t yet known (figured out) how to control the dangers in which cases of cyber crime reach a justice system that still doesn’t understand them. So we need to work toward a society in which everyone knows the risks in order to manage them better,” said Hernandez.

From the looks of it, social media, smartphones and optical illusions are here to stay and the Trick Eye Museum is proof of that.