世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey by JR Tokai Express Research into how people exchange mobile phone numbers and email addresses. 330 people from their monitor group successfully completed a private online survey; 62.7% of the group was male, 15.5% in their twenties, 37.0% in their thirties, 26.1% in their forties, 14.8% in their fifties, and 6.7% in their sixties.

Although the infra-red connection is probably the surest way to exchange data, one problem is, if my experiences are anything to go by, people forget how to use the feature! There is one general “Receive infrared” menu option, but everyone seems to forget where it is; it would make more sense when you select the “Add new contact” option to have a sub-menu saying “Receive data from infra-red”. Coupled with that, there should be a semi-automated exchange. Actually, it might be better to add to the “Display own number” screen an “Exchange via infra-red”, so if both parties select that screen, the send and receive can occur at the same time.

I’ve probably now given away a patentable idea that my employers could have used!

First, just five of the group did not have a mobile phone, so the base sample size for the rest of the survey was 325.

Q1: When you exchange mobile phone numbers, what sort of methods do you use? (Sample size=325, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Ask for other person’s phone number, then call them	246	75.7%
Tell the other person my phone number, then they call me	218	67.1%
Pass a memo	104	32.0%
Transfer via infra-red	91	28.0%
Exchange business cards	44	13.5%
Use a QR code	2	0.6%
Other	3	0.9%

Q2: When you exchange mobile phone email addresses, what sort of methods do you use? (Sample size=325, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Ask for other person’s phone number, then call them	208	64.0%
Tell the other person my phone number, then they call me	189	58.2%
Pass a memo	131	40.3%
Transfer via infra-red	93	28.6%
Exchange business cards	42	12.9%
Tell them my PC email address, and exchange later	33	10.2%
Use a QR code	2	0.6%
Other	2	0.6%

Q3: Do you back up your mobile phone’s address book? (Sample size=325)

Back up to memory card	19.1%
Back up to PC	15.4%
Back up to server-based service	1.2%
Don’t back up	63.1%
Other	1.2%