Half of urban Chinese children use social media: survey

Some 51 percent of urban Chinese children aged 6-12 have microblog accounts, a survey has revealed.

Conducted by children's activity centers in 15 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Lanzhou and Wuhan, the survey asked 3,306 children to answer a questionnaire about their social media habits, people.com.cn reported on Sunday

The first of its kind, the survey found 44.5 percent have cellphones and nearly 68 percent have access to tablets. The survey also noted these primarily urban children have been able to use computers or cellphones since kindergarten.

The children were accustomed to communicating through QQ, Weibo and WeChat. Some 84.8 percent of respondents had QQ accounts - China's most popular instant messaging service - and nearly 70 percent of them use QQ every day. More than 51 percent viewed QQ as their most important communication tool.

Some 51 percent of the respondents have Weibo, China's Twitter-like microblog service and 45.7 percent had WeChat accounts. They also used WeChat to connect with people nearby - mostly strangers.

The survey found Chinese children's media habits are similar to adults. Nearly 80 percent use computers to search for information every day and 46.8 percent read news online. Many children also said that they would turn to the Internet for help when they encounter trouble in their daily life.

Entertainment is a major function in Chinese children's usage of tablets, computers and cellphones.

The survey suggested that more than 90 percent of respondents play online games and 42 percent pay for games every month.

More than 70 percent of children who have access to tablets regard the device only as a game machine.

The survey also found more than 30 percent of children consider themselves more familiar with Internet technologies than their parents.