Rural China Online Update

Posted on April 28, 2008
Filed Under China Internet |

People’s Daily reports:

The online population in China’s rural areas grew 127.7 percent last year, outpacing the 38.2 percent urban expansion, according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC).

About 29.17 million out of the country’s 73 million new netizens, or 40 percent of the total, were from the countryside, taking the total Internet population in rural areas to 52.62 million.

… Lack of access is the major problem: 25.52 million, or 48.5 percent of the rural Internet population, have to browse at Internet cafes, according to the report.

Lower-income adolescent men — those in middle schools and high schools — comprised most of the rural netizens, it said.

The report also showed that 61.4 percent of rural netizens go online to get news and 56.6 percent use search engines, 15 percentage points and 18 percentage points, respectively, fewer than urban areas, said the report.

… The proportion of Internet users among the population in China was 16 percent at the end of 2007, lower than the 19.1 percent global average.

Why low-income, adolescent men are readings the news and searching online rather than blowing each other away playing Counterstrike is beyond me.

Nevertheless, China has done an amazing job in extending internet infrastructure to just about every corner of the country. This won’t do much to alleviate the poverty found there, but it at least provides access to facilities to bridge China’s digital divide.

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