世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com, in conjuction with Cross Marketing Inc, published the results of a survey into communication over the internet. They interviewed 300 computer users at the start of June regarding this question, with exactly half of the group of each sex. Similarly, teenagers made up 20.0% of the respondents, as did those in their twenties, thirties, forties and fifties.

For me personally, as a bit reclusive, I’ve found blogging a great way of meeting people. I’ve made – well, I’ll not number them in case people start counting, but I’ve had a good few other contacts which I should follow up to make them into at least mail friends. I’ve been very pleasantly surprised at the amount of positive postings and private mail I’ve received, but if you feel I’ve not been replying as much as you might expect (or just not at all!), I’ve got your mail on file and this blog really does eat up 90% of my home PC time, and I’m rather introverted about everything anyway, so sorry folks!

First, a basic figure is that 182 people, or 55.2% of the sample have participated in conversation on the internet – excluding email, but including bulletin boards, SNSs, blogs, etc.

Q1: Please tell me all the types of people you converse with using internet-based communication tools. (Sample size=182, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
People I’ve got to know through the internet (to SQ)	110	60.4%
Longtime friends	95	52.2%
Family or relatives	59	32.4%
People introduced to me by friends	35	19.2%
Current school or university friends	23	12.6%
Current workplace friends	23	12.6%
Other	6	3.3%

Note that although 110 people have made friends through the net, this supplemental question asks about those they periodically communicate with, so once that is factored in the sample size drops to just 72.

Q1SQ: Of the people you periodically communicate with on the internet, using what sort of communication tool or method did you meet them? (Sample size=72, mutliple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Bulletin boards other than 2channel	24	33.3%
Social Networking Site (SNS)	19	26.4%
Blogs I visit	15	20.8%
Instant messenger	9	12.5%
Own blog visited by the other person	9	12.5%
2channel	7	9.7%
Text chat (IRC)	7	9.7%
出会い系, deai kei, dating site	6	8.3%
Voice chat	2	2.8%
Video chat	2	2.8%
Q&A community site	2	2.8%
Social bookmarking	1	1.4%
Other	9	12.5%

I would guess the “Other” category includes multiplayer games, which I thought might have been a higher figure, although perhaps they are all too addicted to bother answering this questionnaire!

Q2: Have you ever participated in an offline meeting? (Sample size=300)

Yes	11.7%
No	88.3%