CindyCross-Cultural Glimpses Of Society
Well, it seems official, China has tied or passed the United States in online population. The Chinese government reported that the number of Internet users there has reached 221 million.
The figure was reported by the Xinhua News Agency and shows China’s explosive growth in Internet use (up 61% from last year) despite government efforts to block access to material considered inappropriate.
These numbers are apparently up for debate; CNET News.com said the U.S. maintained a lead over China, 188 million last month, verses 173 million in China.
China also has a very low internet penetration. 16% compared to the world average of 19%. This is well under the US and European averages of 50% and greater. China also has limited direct internet access in the home, and a large portion of Chinese internet access is from cyber cafés.
A major difference between the US and China is the amount of time that the Chinese spend online. On average Chinese Internet users spend a total of just under two billion hours online each week. In the United States, users spend only 129 million hours per week. These figures come from the CEO of Sohu.com Dr. Charles Zhang. About the same numbers of Americans spend only 6% of the time online than the Chinese do - an amazing difference in the cultures.
According to The China Internet Network Information Center, nearly 70% of online users connect for news. On the other hand only 3% of Yahoo clicks are news related.
China has an incredibly fast growing internet population. China is expected to have more online users than the entire population of the United States before the end of 2010.
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