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Digital divide narrows between Chinese youth in urban and rural areas
- This development expands the number of connected users in the world’s biggest internet market
- About 93.9 per cent of young Chinese internet users preferred using a smartphone to go online
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The digital divide between mainland Chinese youth in the country’s urban and rural areas has narrowed, according to the latest government data, helping expand the number of connected users in the world’s biggest internet market.
The China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC), an agency under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, reported on Wednesday that the difference in internet penetration rate between the two groups closed to 3.6 percentage points last year, from 5.4 percentage points in 2018.
That resulted in a total of 175 million juvenile internet users across China, representing online access for more than 90 per cent of people under 18 years of age in the world’s second largest economy.
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China had more than 904 million internet users as of March this year, according to a separate report released by the CNNIC in April.
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The rising number of young internet users, especially from China’s poorer regions, bodes well for Beijing’s long-term plans to roll out critical digital infrastructure, backed by advanced technologies like artificial intelligence as well as a tech-savvy workforce.
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