China has captured the No. 1 ranking as the country with the greatest number of Internet users, according to a Reuters report.
The country clocked in with 221 million Internet users in February, surpassing the U.S. for the top billing, according to Reuters, which cites the Xinhua news agency's reporting of figures from the government-backed China Internet Network Information Center.
However, the Chinese government's figures do have some competition.
Market researcher ComScore told CNET News.com on Thursday that the U.S. maintains a slight lead over China, according to its March figures. The number of U.S. Internet users reached 188 million last month, verses 173 million in China, according to ComScore.
The discrepancy may be due to the length of time the two agencies track figures, a ComScore representative said. ComScore relies on data gathered on a monthly basis, while the China Internet Network Information Center collects data over a six-month period, the representative said.
And while the number of Internet users in China is high by any count, its penetration rate in relation to its population is still lower than the worldwide average. The percentage of Internet users in China is 16 percent of its population, compared with 19.1 percent on a global scale, Reuters said.
A substantial portion of Internet users in rural China rely on Internet cafes to access the Net, according to the China Internet Network Information Center.
Internet users are spending more time looking at content and less time communicating with others, according to an index of Nielsen/Net Rating statistics released by the Online Publishers Association (OPA).
In 2003, Internet users spent about 46 percent of their time communicating and 34 percent reading online content. Those habits seemed to have reversed in the last four years. From January to May 2007, about 47 percent of users' time was spent looking at content and 33 percent spent on communicating.
The change in media habits can be attributed to changes in technology over the last four years, according to OPA.
"The increased popularity of video is leading to more time being spent with online content," according to the OPA reports. Time spent communicating could also be less because more people are using instant messaging (IM), which is quicker than sending e-mail.
Search time also rose. In 2003 people spent 3 percent of their time searching, and for the 2007 period measured, they spent about 5 percent.
The OPA's Internet Activity Index seems to support the results of a study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project that was released in May.
It said that while tech personalities do vary, only a small percentage of people are actually participating in Web 2.0 activities.
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