世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com, in conjunction with goo Research, interviewed at the start of this month by means of a web-based survey 1,094 people from all over the country to find out about how they use USB flash memory, as well as other issues surrounding moving data between PCs. 55.6% of the respondents were female, and 2.7% were teenaged, 21.9% in their twneties, 42.2% in their thirties, 22.9% in their forties, 8.3% in their fifties, and just 1.8% sixty or older.

Last year they also carried out a similar survey, so there will be some extra information about how the marketplace has changed in just a year.

I personally prefer flash memory (SD cards, in fact) as the quickest and easiest way, assuming I can fit all the data on the card. Burning CDs is just a pain and not reusable, and my floppy drive only ever sees action as a boot device for Linux! I also have a Sony NW-A300 hard drive player handy, but the lack of spare USB cables limits its usefulness as a transfer device.

Q1: Do you know what USB Flash Memory is? (Sample size=1,094)

Yes (to SQ)	80.3%
No	19.7%

Q1SQ: Have you used USB flash memory? (Sample size=878)

Yes	68.4%
No	31.6%

This user statistic of 68.4% is an increase of 22 percentage points on last year’s survey, but unfortunately the raw number of users from last year’s survey is not available, so it is difficult to know how much of this 22 point rise is due to increased awareness of USB flash memory (that is, more people answering “Yes” to Q1), and how much is due to those already knowing about USB flash memory starting to use it (that is, more people answering “Yes” to Q1SQ).

Combining the two tables, we get perhaps a slightly better picture of the situation:

Q1+Q1SQ: Do you know what USB Flash Memory is, and if so, have you used it? (Sample size=1,094)

Yes, I know and have used it	54.9%
Yes, I know but have not used it	25.3%
No, I don’t know what it is	19.7%

When asked what size of USB flash memory device they had used, the most popular size was 256MB at 29.8%, then 128MB at 25.1%, 512MB at 12.0%, 64MB at 9.8%, and 32MB at 8.3%, followed by other sizes.

This raises a question not answered within the story I am translating, which is that do removable memory cards fall under the USB flash memory umbrella? I will assume the answer is yes.

Q2: Do you use floppy disks? (Sample size=1,094)

Currently use	29.3%
Used to use	65.2%
Never used	5.6%

Q3: Please tell me how you move data between PCs. (Sample size=1,094, multiple answer)

CD-R, DVD-R, etc	62.2%
Email or messenger attachments	49.5%
USB flash memory	47.7%
LAN	40.3%
Floppy disk	29.5%
External hard drive	17.9%
FTP	9.8%
Other	6.0%
Don’t move data between PCs	9.1%