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Smartphones bridged the digital divide for China’s urban and rural children, but 5G and IoT devices are widening the gap again
- China’s rural residents under 18 years old are less likely to have used smartwatches, voice assistants and computers to get online, new study says
- Chinese children are experiencing the internet at an earlier age than ever
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Surfing the internet used to be simple: we got online using either a computer or smartphone. But the arrival of smartwatches, smart speakers and countless other new gadgets in the Internet of Things has made users more connected than ever. And now that is threatening to widen the digital divide between China’s children in urban and rural areas.
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More than 99 per cent of the country’s population under 18 now has access to the internet, according to an annual study by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. By that metric, the difference between urban and rural areas is nearly negligible. But when researchers looked closer at the use of various technologies, the contrast became more stark.
“With the widespread availability of low-cost mobile phones and data plans, the disparity in internet access between urban and rural areas has almost been eliminated,” they wrote.
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“But this doesn’t mean there is no difference between internet use among minors in urban and rural areas. In the future, the difference will gradually transition from ‘whether they can use it’ to ‘how they use it’.”
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