Governments at different levels have spent lots of money building government websites for more than a decade. But not many people use them, according to researchers at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

More than 68 percent of urban residents on the Chinese mainland never use services provided by government websites, and only about 12 percent of the people consider official websites to be their main channel for information about the government, the research report said.

Nearly 70 percent of urban residents consider mass media their first choice for such information.

The proportion of people who get government information through government websites is slightly more than 12 percent, lagging behind that of people who get it through commercial websites, social media and SMS.

That the web traffic is low reflects the low level of public participation or interest in government affairs in cities on the Chinese mainland, says Wu Wei, associate professor at the university's School of Humanities and Social Sciences, who headed the research project.