(Photo/Chinanews.com)

A report on parent-child relationships in China, the United States (US), Japan, and the Republic of Korea (ROK) showed that 68.1 percent of Chinese primary and secondary school students own smartphones, the second largest ratio among the four countries, with ROK taking the lead, China Youth Daily reported on Oct. 30.

The report, released on Oct. 27 upon the results of a survey carried out by China Youth & Children Research Center and research institutions of the US, Japan, and South Korea, also indicated that 86.5 percent of Chinese primary and secondary school students have multiple electronic products, ranking third overall.

The percentage of primary and secondary school students in the three other countries who own multiple electronic products are 100 percent (ROK), 95 percent (US), and 75.7 percent (Japan).

Among all electronic products, smartphones are the most popular among Chinese students, with 68.1 percent of those surveyed owning one, followed by the PC (41.2 percent), tablet computer (36.7 percent), and phone without internet access (18.4 percent).

Most Chinese students (45.2 percent) started using the internet between the ages of 7 and 9, while between the ages of 4 and 9, 59 percent of Chinese students had already used the internet.

Statistics on time spent by primary and secondary school students online from the four countries indicate that 48.7 percent of Chinese students seldom surf the internet during school days, ranking the highest among the four countries, as does the proportion of Chinese students spending less than 1 hour online during school days.

Chinese students also spend the least amount of time online during weekends compared with the other countries.