Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Nov 1, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Nov 10, 2025 - Jan 5, 2026
Date Accepted: Jan 8, 2026
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Trends of the internet development and Online health usage in China: a ten-year descriptive longitudinal study
ABSTRACT
Background:
Background:
The internet has deeply penetrated all aspects of our social lives. It has served as a vital platform for social, economic, and cultural activities among individuals, and data are rarely available to analyze the trends of networks in China and online health services.
Objective:
Objective:
The aim of this study was to determine the development of the Internet, trends, and Internet medicine using a comprehensive analysis of public data from 2014 to 2025.
Methods:
Methods:
Data were retrieved from the official website of the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) from June 2014 to June 2025. The study was conducted in 31 province/autonomous regions/municipalities, excluding Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan. The participants were citizens older than 6 years who had a telephone or mobile phone. The CNNIC conducted a stratified two-stage sampling survey using a computer-aided telephone access system.
Results:
Results:
From 2014 to 2025, an increasing trend was observed in the number of Internet users and Internet penetration rate in China, and it showed an upward trend towards the number of Internet users,both in urban and rural areas. A consistent increasing trend was detected in the number of mobile internet users. In contrast, desktops and laptops showed a declining trend. The number of online health users in China showed an “V-shape” change from 2020 to 2025. At the end of 2025, the total number of online medical users reached approximately 393 million, representing 35.0% of all Internet users.
Conclusions:
Conclusions:
The Internet in China continues to develop significantly and steadily, with an increasing number of Internet and online medical users in both urban and rural areas. The findings suggest that policymakers and physicians should further promote Internet-based healthcare with new approaches, such as short videos, to realize the overall health of the general population. Clinical Trial: None.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.