Tom Doctoroff, JWT’s chief executive for Greater China, described the internet as a “risk-free release from quotidian life”. He said that Chinese youth have a different relationship with the internet to their US counterparts that stems from the regimented but aggressive nature of the Confucian society in which they live. People are dependent on the internet in all areas of the globe, Doctoroff said.
But where most Westerners approach the internet as a utilitarian device, for their Chinese counterparts it represents a means of emotional expression that is absent in the outside world.
“There is a much greater degree of emotional involvement online in China than in the US,” Doctoroff said.
As a result, five times as many Chinese as American respondents (61 per cent) stated they lived a parallel life online, with 42 per cent admitting that online living had become an addiction.
Doctoroff sees this phenomenon not so much as an escape from real life, but an attempt to “extract the real self” from a society where it is difficult for people to define their individual persona.
Interestingly, over half of Chinese respondents had assumed new identities online, compared with only 17 percent of Americans.
Doctoroff explained that while the internet signifies enhanced choice, freedom, discussion and even sexual awakening, it does so because it offers safety in anonymity.
Even in social networking, “there must be a degree of distance between the real person and what the public sees”, he said, noting that this is at odds with American culture.