Their typing skills may be clumsy, and some still have to learn exactly what it means to click on a mouse, but a growing number of senior citizens in China are already hooked on cyberspace, opposing the saying that the Internet is the preserve of the young.
More than 140,000 senior citizens, aged over 50 years old, have jumped on the net surfing bandwagon in China in the last two years, in the hope of keeping abreast of the changing world and of staying in close touch with relatives abroad, official statistics say.
The number, still a minnow in China’s online community of more than 20 million, is expanding quickly. In the last six months alone, the country’s over 50 “netizens” increased by 55 percent.
Topping their cyber favorites is browsing the news, exchanging e-mails, searching information that fits their interests and hobbies like antiques, gardening, health and the arts, and even trading stocks online.
A recent survey by a Shanghai-based Internet company found 60 percent of senior citizens are interested in how to surf the Internet but worried about using it, while 73 percent said they were eager to get online as soon as possible.
(China Daily 04/16/2001))
