Over 21 million people took under 100 steps a day in Golden Week

Photograph: Ryoji Iwata via Unsplash

Now that you’re back from a week-long Golden Week holiday (sadly), you have to awkwardly go about conversations at work about how your holiday was. ‘Did you go anywhere?’ ‘No. Did you?’ ‘No.’ *Cue awkward silence.* 

If you've had that exact conversation, you're not alone. According to a report released as an infographic by WeChat yesterday, over 21 million people walked less than 100 steps per day during Golden Week. Maybe that immobility has something to do with 700 million travellers crowding every train station and airport in China.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, 56 percent of the holday shut-ins were '80s and '90s kids – hence the term ‘hundred step youth’. Also not surprising, but perhaps rather unsettling, is the fact that WeChat tracks all the steps you take and where you take them. But let's just brush that aside for now, and hope that turning off our phone's GPS actually does give us some privacy.

'12 million youths in China chose to stay home over the holidays.' Image: courtesy WeChat

WeChat's report goes on to reveal that the top five provinces with the highest concentration of home dwellers were Guangdong, Shandong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Liaoning, in descending order. 

What do you do when you’re bored at home? Order food, of course. WeChat also found that the provinces with the highest number of waimai orders were Guangdong, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Fujian and Sichuan, in descending order. 

You’ll be happy to hear that these people weren't just staying home and eating takeout, but they were also reading books (faith in humanity restored). According to WeChat's report, these shut-ins logged a collective total of 19.87 million hours reading. The most frequent readers logging around 12 hours of reading time a day. Yes, WeChat also knows our reading habits, but let's just ignore that for now.

However, apparently if you live in Shenzhen, Shanghai or Beijing, you were most likely to be stuck home working, with the report listing the most overworked industries as retail, manufacturing and IT. WeChat figured out these datapoints via their WeChat Work app, a workflow management platform for commercial enterprises.

WeChat being real AF said, 'some people view the world from their Moments, others travel the world and share Moments.’ 

Image: courtesy WeChat

While all this seems quite sad, one adventurous traveller made the longest recorded journey, going from Shenzhen to the Hill of Seven Colours in Argentina. Start planning your next travel destination as far as possible because WeChat will definitely know about it. Seriously, WeChat, can you be less creepy?

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