世論 What Japan Thinks

I thought this suvey might have been better with a title like “Japanese cell phone strap usage”, but in the interests of truth in advertising, the headline you see gets straight to the point of this article! japan.internet reported on a recent survey conducted by goo Research into not buying cute cell phone straps from Japan but actually just mobile phone straps.

Demographics

Between the 2nd and 5th of November 2007 1,007 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% were male, 18.1% in their teens, 20.2% in their twenties, 17.1% in their thirties, 17.0% in their forties, 16.9% in their fifties, and 10.8% aged sixty or older.

My own phone features straps featuring Monokuro Boo cubic pigs, a regional comedian, Hello Kitty (of course!), Miffy, Totoro, and a teddy bear. Really, I’m not making this up just to get you to buy cute cell phone straps from Japan.

Also note that the iPhone doesn’t have a eyelet to allow you to attach kawaii Japanese mobile phone straps to it, a mistake I think they must rectify to make it a success in Japan.

In the interests of disclosure, I ought to point out that this article may contain affiliate links, not that you couldn’t have guessed based on all the links trying to sell kawaii cell phone straps from Japan.

Research results

From the original sample 880 people, or 87.4% had mobile phones. It’s usually about 95% who have mobile phones, so I’m not sure why the figures for this survey is lower than usual. Perhaps work phones were excluded from the survey, or phones without mounting points?

Q1: Do you have straps attached to your cell phone or phones? (Sample size=880)

Yes, to all of them (to SQ1 and SQ2)	72.6%
Yes, to some of them (to SQ1 and SQ2)	1.7%
No, to none of them (to SQ3)	25.7%

Q1SQ1: How many straps do you have attached to your cell phone? If you have more than one phone, answer for the one with the most straps attached. (Sample size=654)

One	54.4%
Two	26.0%
Three	11.8%
Four	4.6%
Five or more	3.2%

Q1SQ2: What kind of straps do you have attached to your cell phone? (Sample size=654, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Character strap	329	50.3%
Ordinary strap	229	35.0%
Screen cleaner, light, ghost detector, other tool	97	14.8%
Neck strap	69	10.6%
Clip-on type strap	68	10.4%
Brand strap	56	8.6%
Strap supplied with phone	18	2.8%
Other	53	8.1%

Wow! It’s quite amazing what you find – these Harris Tweed neckstraps are made from Harris Tweed (obviously!), a product from the island where I was born, and perhaps even one or two of the people who make the tweed have their accounts done by my brother.

Others included 13 people with handmade straps, and 11 people with omamori charms or power stones.

Q1SQ3: Why don’t you have a strap attached to your cell phone? (Sample size=226)

Don’t feel it’s needed	51.8%
No designs I like	18.6%
Gets caught when I pull the phone out of my bag, etc	13.3%
Adds weight	5.8%
Don’t have a strap to attach	3.1%
Other	7.5%