Study: China Leads the U.S. in "Digital Self-Expression"

Chinese Internet café in Lijiang, Yunnan, China.

Millions of young Chinese are embracing the Internet as a discreet space for their thoughts and emotions, according to a survey of Chinese and American youth released today by IAC, which operates businesses in sectors being transformed by the Internet, and JWT, an advertising agency network.

The findings show how readily young Chinese are taking to the Internet and its possibilities-for example, almost five times as many Chinese as American respondents said they have a parallel life online (61 percent vs. 13 percent). And while fewer than half of the 1,079 American respondents agreed that "I live some of my life online" (42 percent), a sizable majority of the 1,104 Chinese respondents agreed with the statement (86 percent). The two random online surveys polled 16- to 25-year-olds.

The "Young Digital Mavens" study aimed to explore how attitudes toward digital technology are changing among Chinese and American youth at a time when people are spending less time with traditional media and more with interactive technology. China's ballooning online population, estimated at 137 million, is now second only to that of the U.S. (165-210 million Americans, according to a July 2007 report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project).

The study found that while a large majority of youth in both countries now feel dependent on digital technology, this attitude is especially pronounced in China. As many as 80 percent of Chinese respondents agreed that "Digital technology is an essential part of how I live," compared with 68 percent of Americans. The Internet is such a vital part of life for Chinese youth that they are twice as likely as young Americans to say they would not feel OK going without Internet access for more than a day (25 percent vs. 12 percent). And more than twice as many Chinese youth admitted they sometimes feel "addicted" to living online: 42 percent vs. 18 percent of Americans.

"The Chinese people seem to be way ahead of Americans in living a digital life," noted IAC Chairman and CEO Barry Diller today in Beijing, where he spoke to more than 350 Chinese students at Peking University. "More activity online means a more connected and a more evolved workforce -- just what China needs as it makes its move from being the workshop of the world, to a developed economy in its own right."

"Like many other areas in comparing Americans to the energy and progress elsewhere in the world, China's speedy evolution in its use of the internet is fast eclipsing that of the US. I think this is great for China, not so great for us," Diller added.

Test-Driving Freedom and Identity
"For young Americans, the Internet provides an incremental increase in the huge range of options they enjoy in life, but for young Chinese it represents a steep increase in choice -- and this is reflected in the strength of Chinese response to questions about opinions and interactions online," says Tom Doctoroff, JWT's CEO of Greater China and Northeast Asia area director.

While most American youth grew up taking for granted both interactive technology and the "let it all hang out" ethos it has encouraged, these are new concepts for young Chinese. "Our findings show that Chinese youth experience this new emotional space ... more intensely than young Americans," explains Doctoroff, author of Billions: Selling to the New Chinese Consumer.

While the Internet provides an outlet for young people everywhere who are testing out different identities as they seek to discover themselves, this is especially true in China, where it allows more scope for experimentation than life offline. More than twice as many Chinese respondents agreed that "I have experimented with how I present myself online" (69 percent vs. 28 percent of Americans). And in fact, more than half the Chinese sample (51