Editing Katherine Young

{{Short description|Chinese-American centenarian (1901–2005)}}
{{For|other similarly-named people|Catherine Young (disambiguation)}}
{{One source|date=January 2025}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=October 2011}}
{{Infobox person
|birth_date={{birth date|1901|5|10}}
|image=
|birth_place=[[File:Flag of the Qing Dynasty (1889-1912).svg|20px]] [[Fujian]], [[Qing Empire]]
|alma_mater=[[Yenching University]]
|spouse=Paul T. J. Young
|relatives = [[Andrew Lih]] (grandson)
|death_date={{death date and age|2005|10|24|1901|5|10}}
|death_place= [[Palo Alto]], [[California]]
}}
'''Katherine Young''' (鄭珣; [[Pinyin]]: '''Zhèng Xún''') (May 10, 1901 – October 24, 2005) was an American [[centenarian]] who, at the age of 102 in 2003, gained publicity when she was described as the oldest known living user of the Internet.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-101318963.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121104081831/http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-101318963.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2012-11-04 |title=California Woman Still Web-Surfing at 102. |publisher=Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News |date=2003-05-07 |accessdate=2010-07-03}}</ref>

== Biography ==
Born in a small [[Hakka people|Hakka]] village in the [[Fujian]] province during the final years of [[Late Imperial China]], she attended [[Yenching University]] in the capital, then referenced as [[Peking]].  Raising four daughters with her husband, Paul T. J. Young, she lived through the tumultuous 1920s, along with the death and destruction of the [[Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945)|Sino-Japanese War]] and World War II during the 1930s and 1940s.  At war's end, with [[Mao Zedong]]'s [[Chinese Revolution (1949)|Communist armies]] poised to take over, the family escaped to Hong Kong, then [[Taiwan]], and, in 1958, when Katherine Young was 57 years old, immigrated to the United States, settling in the California [[charter city]] of [[Palo Alto]], along the [[San Francisco Bay Area]].

In 1998, aged 97, and having served as president of the Rose Club in Palo Alto's Lytton Gardens Senior Communities, she decided to try something new and signed up for the retirement community's 12-week computer class which aimed to teach seniors how to use [[WebTV]].  By the conclusion of these sessions, she was logging on and became an activist for the cause of encouraging elders to use the Internet. A [[Pew Research Center|Pew Internet and American Life Project]] study showed that only 18% of Americans 65 and older get online, as opposed to 58% of the American population as a whole.

Five years later, on her 102nd birthday, she became a celebrity for being the oldest person to surf the Internet. She was feted with numerous birthday emails and an emailed [[obstetric ultrasonography|sonogram]] of her great-grandson, who was born in August 2003.  She studied Chinese [[genealogy]] on [[Google]] and, having been Rose Club president for 16 years, researched roses. She used email to communicate with her ten grandchildren and told reporters she checks for new messages as many as six times a day.  From her apartment, she accessed the Internet via MSN TV (formerly WebTV) Internet service provider. Microsoft recognized her achievement and gave her a golden lifetime subscription.

Katherine Young died in Palo Alto almost six months past her 104th birthday.  It has been noted that although she was considered the oldest known living user of the Internet, [[Audrey Stubbart]] who, until very shortly before her death five years earlier, in 2000, at age 105, was a columnist, copyeditor and proofreader for the [[Missouri]] newspaper ''[[Independence Examiner]]'', used the then-early Internet at a slightly more-advanced age.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20041121181738/http://it.21cn.com/itnews/newsit/2003-05-09/1036374.htm 人生新鲜事学不完 美华裔102岁老人天天上网]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Young, Katherine}}
[[Category:1901 births]]
[[Category:2005 deaths]]
[[Category:American women centenarians]]
[[Category:Chinese emigrants to the United States]]
[[Category:People from Fujian]]
[[Category:People from Palo Alto, California]]
[[Category:Yenching University alumni]]
[[Category:Chinese Civil War refugees]]
[[Category:Chinese women centenarians]]