By Ken Y-N (
October 4, 2007 at 23:31)
· Filed under Mobile, Polls
I’ve read a grand total of exactly one book on a PDA, and zero on mobile phones. I just found it too tiring squinting at a small screen, and as I’m not on an unlimited plan, downloading material to my mobile phone is prohibitively expensive. To find out what Japan thinks, let’s look at a survey reported by japan.internet.com and conducted by goo Research on the topic of electronic books.
Demographics
Between the 18th and 20th of September 2007 1,088 members of goo Research’s online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.0% of the sample was male, 17.3% in their teens, 19.9% in their twenties, 18.0% in their thirties, 17.2% in their forties, 16.6% in their fifties, and 11.0% aged sixty or older.
Note that DoCoMo and SoftBank (and most likely au too) have free manga libraries for their customers, if you have an unlimited contract and looking for something to download and practice your Japanese on.
Research results
Q1: Do you know about electronic books? (Sample size=1,088)
| Yes |
57.9% |
| Just heard of them |
36.2% |
| No |
15.9% |
Q2: Do you know about electronic books that you can read on portable devices? (Sample size=1,088)
| Yes |
54.4% |
| Just heard of them |
30.9% |
| No |
14.7% |
Q3: Have you ever read an electronic book? (Sample size=1,088)
Q3: Have you ever read an electronic book on a mobile phone? (Sample size=1,088)
| Yes (to SQ) |
16.2% |
| No |
83.8% |
Q3SQ: What genres of contents have you read on a mobile phone? (Sample size=176, multiple answer)
| |
Votes |
Percentage |
| Manga |
130 |
73.9% |
| Novel |
85 |
48.3% |
| Business books |
6 |
3.4% |
| Game-related |
6 |
3.4% |
| Travel |
6 |
3.4% |
| Gourmet, food |
5 |
2.8% |
| Photograph collections |
4 |
2.3% |
| Other |
3 |
1.7% |
Q4: Have you ever read an electronic book on a PDA? (Sample size=1,088)
| Yes (to SQ) |
16.2% |
| No |
83.8% |
Q4SQ: What genres of contents have you read on a PDA? (Sample size=21, multiple answer)
| |
Votes |
Percentage |
| Novel |
17 |
81.0% |
| Business books |
8 |
38.1% |
| Manga |
3 |
14.3% |
| Photograph collections |
2 |
9.5% |
| Game-related |
2 |
9.5% |
| Gourmet, food |
2 |
9.5% |
| Travel |
1 |
4.8% |
| Other |
2 |
9.5% |
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Deas said,
October 5, 2007 @ 09:12
Yeah…but are electronic books widely read anywhere? I like the feel of paper, the ability to tangibly flip pages, and even the smell (yes, the smell) of bound books. E-paper and e-books just aren’t my thing.
Ken Y-N said,
October 5, 2007 @ 10:44
Hi Deas,
I suppose there is the image in the West of all Japanese reading manga on their cell phones. I agree with the tangible issue of paper too, but for disposable content (is it really disposable, though? Is collecting volumes half the fun?) like manga I’d have thought it might be more popular.
Ken
Brinxmat said,
January 24, 2008 @ 18:28
As a librarian, I have seen many articles that appear to contradict this information — they state that there is massive popularity of books on mobile. Of course, none offer statistics. Excellent work!
Of course books are not popular on electronic devices, in fact, in the same way that webpages are unpopular in paper format.
eBooks not quite the thing in Japan « Infonatives said,
January 24, 2008 @ 19:13
[…] Putting aside the gross generalization “everyone in country X” for a moment, I found an article on whatjapanthinks.com, which presents statistics on Japanese reading habits related to […]