A social worker shows seniors at a neighborhood in Yangzhou, Jiangsu province, how to use a smartphone. MENG DELONG/FOR CHINA DAILY

Half of China's population aged 65 to 69 are smartphones users, according to survey results released at a national population and development forum.

The survey, jointly launched by the China Population and Development Research Center (CPDRC), the China Family Planning Association and the National School of Development at Peking University, collected more than 17,000 samples of seniors aged 65 and above in 26 provincial-level regions.

According to the survey, 31.2 percent of the 70 to 79 age group and 1.3 percent of the 100 and older age group use smartphones. Instant messaging is the major function for the elderly users, followed by other functions such as news and video streaming.

He Dan, head of the CPDRC, said there will be a surge in the influence of digitization on the lives of older people. During the process of sampling, many primary-level survey workers were impressed by elderly people's desire for social recognition and interaction.

At the end of 2022, there were 280 million people aged 60 and over in China, accounting for 19.8 percent of the entire population, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.