Chinese social media users say social media has had a significant positive impact on their lives, even though they worry it stops them reading printed books and they have concerns about privacy.
The Kantar China Social Media Impact Report 2014, released today, shows that on a 100-point scale to rate social media's impact, Chinese users' average rating is 73.4 points, indicating a strong positive view.
Global research and insights leader Kantar carried out the report through data mining, Weibo text mining and online polling. The research covers 60 Chinese cities, an adult sample of 74,000 and 3 million Sina Weibo posts.
"This new study gives a clear picture of Chinese social media users' behaviour and attitudes," says Mandy Pooler, Communications Director of Kantar. "We can see many unique features of Chinese social media users. This research also forms a benchmark from which we can compare the situation in China with that in other countries. It also allows us to compare possible future results with this one to see how the landscape is shifting."
For the online polling part of the research, 76.8% of 12,221 participants said social media's impact is positive, 16.5% said the impact is neutral, while only 6.7% respondents said social media made their lives worse.
On the positive side, they said social media can "adjust my mood and relieve the pressure of reality" (67.2%) and "make my life more efficient and convenient" (48.3%). While on the negative side, they are blaming social media for "reduced print book reading" (52.8%) and "lack of privacy" (39.1%). Virtual connections do not appear to have severely harmed relationships in the real world as only 30.8% said they experienced "negative impact on personal relationships."
"From the results of our survey we can see that people are using social media as a tool to `shine happiness' in their lives, for example: nice food, beautiful scenes and cute babies! Chinese people also use social media to make jokes out of bad things that happen. They see it as a useful tool to relieve pressure in their lives" said Sophie Shen, General Manager of CTR Media & Consumption Behaviour, who led the online polling survey. "However, we also see people starting to pay attention to privacy and the negative influence social media can have on relationships in real life. I think we'll hear more about these worries in the future, as the negative influence of social media continues to emerge."
The survey also compares WeChat and Weibo usage. Respondents say Weibo is a "public social" channel, beating WeChat in "interacting with public" (40.2% vs 25.3%) while WeChat is a "close social" channel, used for connecting with classmates, friends or colleagues (76.3% vs 69.6%).
The continuous survey part of the research gives a portrait of Chinese social media users from 53,000 urban residents. Social media's penetration rates are higher for people born in 1980s and 1990s, while 48.6% of them are single, as compared to 29.5% of urban residents' average.
Though they are more likely to follow the latest fashion and technology trends, they also have more spiritual needs, because more of them consider themselves "to have a belief" and agree they are "interested in other cultures" when compared with total urban residents.
To understand the sentiments of younger social media users, this survey also includes a project to "text mine" 3 million weibo posts from 8,000 Sina Weibo users born in 80s or 90s.
Both groups appear to have expressed overwhelmingly positive sentiments in their posts - with 80s group's posts marginally higher (76% over 72%).
"With over 600 million users, social media both reflects and defines what is hot in China and provides an unmatched opportunity to understand the Chinese consumer. Our research analysing more than 3 million weibo tweets from 80's and 90's generation utilising CIC's patent pending text mining technology is a perfect example," said Sam Flemming, founder and CEO of CIC, Kantar's specialised social media research agency in China.
"We found that the 80s and 90s are very positive and supportive of fellow netizens and that recreation and emotional topics are the two most popular themes, especially by the 90s," Sam said.
CIC data showed that video watching was the prime recreation activity mentioned by both groups (22% vs 29%). Shopping ranked second for 80s (20%) and astrology ranked second for 90s (18%), which is because of the different life stages the 80s and 90s are in, Sam explained.
EDITOR'S NOTES
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