What does 碎片化 mean?

it means fragmentation, for example: The porcelain has fragmented cracks. 瓷器有碎片化裂痕

碎片化 literally just means fragmentation, or to shatter into pieces. However, in today's context the word has developed to be able to describe abstract things that are characterized to be "small, incomplete, in pieces".

A typical example would be "碎片化阅读". This is by far the most common collocation of 碎片化. 碎片化阅读 literally means to use a tiny bit amount of time to read a tiny bit amount of things. For example, reading posts on twitter is a perfect example for 碎片化阅读.

We also say 碎片化时间. This would just mean a tiny bit amount of time in which you normally do not do anything. For example, the amount of time when you are waiting for the bus to come. We could say 利用碎片化时间进行碎片化阅读, to use fragmented time to do fragmented reading.

Normally, Chinese speakers use this to describe how the internet has shattered everything into pieces -- we don't normally read long texts any more but read short tweets and instagram posts (碎片化阅读) ; we don't normally watch lengthy videos any more but watch short tiktok clips (碎片化娱乐); we don't normally spend a complete, continous amount of time to do something but shatter our time into pieces (碎片化时间), etc.

I hope this helps.

....化 means to generalize something universally and use it as a suffix, just like ~zation,

碎片 means fragment, chip, pieces of information or thing,

more: 碎片化 (fragmentization), 信息化 (informatization), 现代化 (modernization)