Along with the deep-going popularization of the Internet technique the number of the Internet users is increasing by leaps and bounds in different walks of life and at various social strata. However, barred outside the gate of the information age are the elderly people that comprise over 10 percent of the Chinese population.
An activity known as "assistance to the aged in using computers" kicked off recently in Beijing. The activity was aiming at shortening the distance for the aged to keep pace with the information age, helping them in releasing the hindrances of using the computer, inputting and logging on the Internet.
A surveyed datum shows: the majority of the Chinese aged is longing for getting touch with the Internet. However, being unable to get adapted to the keyboard designed by the westerners and suchlike this has to a great extent kept a great number of the aged people outside the gate for popularizing the use of computer.
The survey also indicates: the old like the others have the needs and fervor to learn new sci-tech knowledge and to follow up with the trend of the times. Up to the end of last year the number of the aged of over 50 years in China who have been logging on the net come to more than 150,000. And a market survey shows that over 90 percent of the urban middle and aged people like to know something about the Internet and among them some 70 percent would like to get a peep on it.
As reported China from now on has stepped into the aging society. The elderly people of over 60 years old have come to 10 percent of the total population and the urban middle and old people have added up to over 50 million. And up to the end of last year the aged in Beijing have reached 188,000 in number and a forecast says up to the year 2005 the people of over 60 years old will come to 203,600, accounting for 15.35 percent of the population in Beijing.
The picture shows that Yu Zhongxing, 67, uses the Shanghai Library's new computer system to search for the books he wants.
(china.org.cn, December 21, 2001)
