世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com released the results of an opinion poll conducted this month by goo Research into searching for your own name and others on the internet. 1,088 people successfully completed the internet-based private questionnaire. 56.3% of the sample was male, 21.8% in their twenties, 41.5% in their thirties, 25.2% in their forties, and 11.5% in their fifties.

This practice is known as egosurfing and is fun from not just the ego point of view, but also for finding others of the same name – my non-double-barreled name is shared with a commentator for the Jets (what Jets, or what sport, I don’t know), a member of the Manitoba Hockey Players Foundation, president for Veridiem Inc, a member of Consumer Direct Scotland, and someone mapping Hong Kong’s cultural landscapes. Interestingly enough, my wife’s name turns up zero Japanese hits and just one false English hit.

Q1: Have you ever searched on the internet for your own name? (Sample size=1,088)

Yes, and found information on myself	28.9%
Yes, but didn’t find information on myself	35.4%
No	35.8%

The main motives for egosurfing were because they were curious to see what sort of search results and about how much search results would come up.

Q2: Have you ever searched for information about someone you know personally in real life? Select all that apply from the list below. (Sample size=1,088, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Friends or family	494	45.4%
Lovers or people I fancy	206	18.9%
Colleagues, bosses or subordinates	200	18.4%
Doctors	114	10.5%
Neighbours or relatives	113	10.4%
Work clients or people met at seminars, etc	111	10.2%
Teachers	105	9.7%
Matchmaking partners or dating party attendees	12	1.1%
Other	40	3.7%
None of the above	410	37.7%

Regarding the motive for searching for information on people at work, the top reason given by 26.5% was to find out about their previous work history, then 20.0% wanted to find out what they did outside of work.

Q3: How would you feel if someone was searching for your name? (Sample size=1,088)

Happy	6.4%
Not particularly bothered	46.2%
Feel bad about it	47.3%