世論 What Japan Thinks

Following on from yesterday’s look (well, it was supposed to be yesterday’s but I forgot to press the “Publish” button!) at the life of a Japanese dog, this survey from iShare took a look at people’s opinions regarding pet funerals – any pet, not just dogs.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 8th of July 2010 480 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.6% of the sample were male, 28.1% in their twenties, 34.8% in their thirties, and 37.1% in their forties.

In Q3, the story was that a pet funeral business in Hanno city in Saitama prefecture, rather that giving Fido a proper send-off, they just fly-tipped him and hundreds of his buddies down a back road. In order to counteract this problem in the future, from 2012 the government will require pet funeral business to be registered.

Note that since Japan is nominally Buddhist especially in matters of death, cremation is also the prefered method for disposing of pets. If I had a dead pet, I’d just get the council round to take him away, but I’m sure my wife would have other ideas.
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Alternatively subtitled “Over half of single Japanese sleep with their dogs”, but that sort of headline has got me into trouble before! When Yahoo! Japan Value Insight took a look at dog ownership, they found out that and many other interesting facts.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 27th of June 2010 560 members of the Yahoo! monitor group living in Tokyo or the three surrounding prefectures with only one dog completed a private internet-based questionnaire. There were 100 of both men and women who were married with children, 68 men and 100 women married with no children, and 92 men and 100 women unmarried and living alone. The ages of each sub-group ranged from 20 to 59 years old. There was also another 100 of both men and women unmarried but living at home, but their answers were not reported.

I’m a cat person myself with a mild dog phobia, so I cannot but be amazed at the stupidity of the owners. On the other hand if it were felines, I would fully accept the results as a balanced representation of the respect humans have for their cat masters!

Photo from Chi (in Japan) on flickr.
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Here’s a little bit of Japanese rail transport recent history I wasn’t aware of, uncovered in a survey by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into railway station message boards. It appears that these blackboards could be used not just for official announcements, but also by the public for passing messages. Now, of course, the mobile phone has replaced the need.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 16th of July 2010 1,051 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.3% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.6% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

There’s no notice board in my station in an obvious place, although I think I remember seeing one when I had to go to the station office, but it is probably used for internal communication only. Here’s a sample board, with the message saying “A perv was here”, taken by Tomozo on flickr.

For a number of months goo Research has been conducting a regular survey into mobile phone users’ use of computers, but the reports on japan.internet.com have been pretty uninteresting. However this time, the 18th time, the focus of the report was on email newsletters, or “mail magazines” as they are called in Japanese.

Demographics

Over the 12th and 13th of July 2010 1,087 mobile phone using members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private mobile internet-based questionnaire. 55.9% of the sample were female, 2.3% in their teens, 22.8% in their twenties, 39.7% in their thirties, 26.1% in their forties, and 9.0% aged fifty or older.

The only email newsletter I get on my mobile phone is from Mr Donut, as it sometimes offers coupons for discounts on doughnuts and coffee. Just about all my PC newsletters fall into the Other category, being related to various blogging sites and services.
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It’s been a while since I’ve had a FAIL post, so here goes with a look at what Japanese females think are men’s summer fashion FAILs.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 23rd of June 2010 1,137 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 65.1% of the sample were female, 8.0% in their teens, 20.4% in their twenties, 31.2% in their thirties, 23.9% in their forties, 9.2% in their fifties, and 7.2 aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample. In addition, this question was for females only.

I don’t do any of these fashion FAILs, but my pet FAIL are Crocs regardless of the season, and Jesus sandals annoy me for some reason. I’m not really sure about number 12, lots of silver – is silver supposed to be trendy in this weather?
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Recently, goo Research conducted a very thorough survey into media consumption in Japan, covering both the old and new media.

Demographics

Between the 2nd and 4th of June 2010 1,561 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were male, 16.1% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.4% aged sixty or older.

I’m surprised at the number who surf while watching television! I very rarely do so, perhaps because I can’t handle Japanese television as a background task because I need to use too much brain to follow the Japanese, especially as I often need to read the ever-present subtitles to help my understanding. Furthermore, even though television is a passive task, being married I think it is ignoring my spouse to some degree, and anyway it’s difficult to type with one arm round her shoulder…
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Here’s a great survey from iShare, looking at the potentially rather dull subject of search engines, but by examining the relationship between usage patterns and browser choice they uncover interesting trends.

Demographics

Between the 29th of June and the 2nd of July 2010 474 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.6% of the sample were male, 27.4% in their twenties, 34.2% in their thirties, and 38.4% in their forties.

I feel that the CLUB BBQ demographic tends to be more technical than the average user, and that is perhaps reflected in the choice of search engine in Q1SQ3 where Google beats Yahoo! by a factor of three to one, despite other surveys with a wider demographic spread indicating that Yahoo! is a few points ahead of Google.

I use Opera and use its built-in toolbar to search Google. I’ve heard from a few people that Bing is actually worthwhile trying out, but when I’ve tried it out it very cleary biases my search towards Japan-located and Japanese-language results and I don’t know how to tell it to take a more global view.
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With 3D television starting to get off the ground in Japan, with a few particular programs being broadcast in 3D, goo Research took a look at television in general, but the report from japan.internet.com chose to focus on the 3D aspect.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 12th of July 2010 1,095 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 17.9% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties 16.4% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 12.4% aged sixty or older.

Although I’ve been to two 3D movies, I’ve not actually watched 3D television. I was in a store with a pair of 3D glasses set up, but they had some really rather uninteresting scenery sample playing, so I didn’t bother having a peek through the specs. I’ve no desire to buy despite manufacturers strongly pushing the new technology.
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A rather interesting survey by iShare looked at a topic that I’ve covered before, namely mobile battery recharging frequency, but with a look at a new angle, specifically what causes the battery to run down.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 28th of June 2010 462 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.3% of the sample were male, 32.9% in their twenties, 33.5% in their thirties, and 33.5% in their forties.

I recharge my phone about once every three days, but I blame that more on a two year old battery than on my occasional email habit.

It would have been nice to also see a breakdown of recharging habits against smartphones and feature phones.
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Here’s a short and perhaps less interesting than it could have been look at software keyboards, not just touch panels as on many smartphones, but also pen or even mouse-operated on-screen keyboards. The survey was conducted by goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Over the 29th and 30th of June 2010 1,065 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16.1% in their teens, 18.5% in their twenties, 20.9% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 16.2% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

Sort-of connected with this topic, on the news tonight I saw an item on the use of the iPad by seniors. There were things like a training school for older people, with almost everyone over 70 years old and the oldest 95, who said he was keen to learn how to use it. There also seems to be a mini boom in the Japanese software industry for making OAP-targeted iPad applications.
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