China's New SMS Culture

On the first day of the Lunar New Year, Beijing residents sent 831 million SMS from their mobile phones to wish friends and relatives rather than visiting in Person. This shows a decline in family relations in China. In the Chinese capital city alone residents sent 831 million SMS for New Year, according to the Beijing branch of China Mobile, the country's biggest telecom operator.

According to a report of China Unicom Beijing, a recorded peak volume of 8,000 text messages per second sent on first night of the new year on Saturday, the February 10th. "Saying happy new year on Weibo has become a good custom," was quoted as saying by the China National Radio. Weixin, a popular smartphone application that allows voice messages and more creatively edited greetings, also became popular this year among the country's 233 million 3G users due to its convenience and low cost, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Chinese sent 897 billion SMS messages in 2012, up only 2.1 per cent year on year, whereas the number of mobile users gained about 11 per cent to 1.1 billion", said a report from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in January. China has now 564 million netizens, about 75 per cent of whom can access the Internet from their cell phones, according to the MIIT report.

More young Chinese are nowadays working and settling down in cities far from home. Beijing had 7.7 million migrant residents as of the end of 2012, and many of them are the only children in their families. Zhong Xin, a professor of communications at Renmin University said "It is perhaps necessary for young people to cherish family ties, for they will have fewer and fewer relatives as time passes. He said loneliness is harder to deal with than the bustle. (Source: Agencies)