Japanese only manage it once a month, if they manage it at all
That is commenting on blogs, of course, although the same is also true for what I think you were thinking of! This was one of the results published on japan.internet.com in a summary of a survey by Cross Marketing Inc into writing stuff on the internet.
Demographics
Over the 26th and 27th of December 2007 300 members of the Cross Marketing monitor pool successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. the sample was 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.
One of my resolutions for the year is to network more, and although currently I write on bulletin boards just about every day, my rate of commenting on blogs is about once every two or three days. I suppose I should really set myself numeric targets such as 30 comments a month and keep track of how I’m doing.
Research results
Q1: About how often do you write on internet bulletin boards (including SNS communities and customer review sites)? (Sample size=300)
Once a day or more 8.3% Once every two or three days 8.3% Once every four or five days 3.3% Once a week 9.0% Once every two or three weeks 4.7% Once a month 3.3% Less than that 10.3% Never write, just read them 34.0% Don’t use bulletin boards 18.7% Q2: About how often do you write comments on other people’s SNS diary pages? (Sample size=300)
Once a day or more 5.0% Once every two or three days 6.0% Once every four or five days 2.7% Once a week 7.0% Once every two or three weeks 3.3% Once a month 5.3% Less than that 9.0% Never write, just read them 27.3% Don’t use SNSs 34.3% Q2: About how often do you write comments on other people’s blogs? (Sample size=300)
Once a day or more 3.0% Once every two or three days 3.7% Once every four or five days 2.7% Once a week 4.3% Once every two or three weeks 3.3% Once a month 5.0% Less than that 10.7% Never write, just read them 40.0% Don’t use blogs 27.3%
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Candadai Tirumalai said,
January 10, 2008 @ 23:02
An article in “The Washington Post” a month or so ago about Japanese blogs made the point that people do not comment much on other people’s blogs. Your survey establishes that quite a few read blogs. Perhaps the relative lack of comment comes from a certain reticence in the Japanese character. I would be surprised if readers commented as acidly or venomously as some do in America and Britain.
Chris Giddings said,
January 10, 2008 @ 23:42
I have to say my thoughts lean to those of Candadai Tirumalai on this one. I think it natural that the Japanese ‘want to know’ things… and also natural to their culture that they would ‘mind their own business’ by not injecting their opinion without having been asked to do so.
Ken Y-N said,
January 10, 2008 @ 23:52
On the whole Japanese blogs are rather characterless, I feel, but 2 channel (look it up!) has many a reader willing to join in in mass flame wars or comment spamming on blogs or whatever that displease them. It is wrong to ignore 2 channel just to make a point about all being happy and light in the Japanese internet world.
Chris Giddings said,
January 11, 2008 @ 02:44
@Ken Y-N
I agree. Generally ignoring 2chan and affiliated sites and knock-offs such as 4chan, 7chan and fapchan has become second nature, at least to me. The culture purveyed through those forums-based sites has consistently been found to not reflect the actions those individuals would take when the anonymity is lost.
Though it is rather scary that 2chan can actually influence election results via mass voting. At least they choose to participate in their democracy.
Shari said,
January 11, 2008 @ 10:59
I agree with Ken Y-N, particularly in light of the known problems with cyberbullying. The Japanese are not one big, happy, polite family of bowing, apologizing automatons. Despite the desire of western folks to stereotype them and put them on a pedestal, they are just as human as anyone in another country (as it should be!). They have their anger and pain, but just find different outlets for it than we might expect because of cultural differences. The fact that we are blind to those methods because we are only scrutinizing them for their use of the same outlets as us doesn’t mean they aren’t doing something to help them cope to which we are blind.
Personally, I always feel that, unless it’s in service of satire or humor (like the Onion), painting the Japanese as perfect examples of composure and self-control does them a long-term disservice. I’m not sure anyone should have to live up to the image westerners enjoy slapping on the Japanese.
Alex said,
January 11, 2008 @ 12:11
Actually, I’ve had a conversation about something similar to this with a good friend of mine who teaches Japanese and linguistics to foreign students at a national university in Japan. He commented particularly on Chinese students blogging habits, and he noticed a lot of them even write poetry, often, and share it! Both of us were embarassed to be offered to read this sort of thing. But he also doesn’t understand why people write blogs at all. In his opinion, it’s like allowing perfect strangers to read your diary.
It seems like it’d be a good topic for social psychologists to research, and perhaps they already have. Even more of a mystery to me, though, is how it is decided what issues the average Japanese person doesn’t feel comfortable stating their opinion on, versus what they do feel comfortable talking about. Often, those topics are very different from what Westerners may be used to. (Relationships, politics, religion, etc) I was asked countless times whom I voted for in the Kerry/Bush election; what my religion is; whether or not I am dating anyone, etc. I get a kick out of it all! If they are comfortable enough to ask, I don’t mind answering.
Koichi said,
January 11, 2008 @ 13:21
I’ve definitely noticed a lack of commenting by Japanese readers. I get tons of Jp.youtube.com hits on my youtube page, yet you see very few Japanese viewers commenting anywhere. Same with my Japanese blog, koichiben.com. It’s amazing how few comments you see on a lot of Japanese blogs, even when they have thousands of daily unique views. I think victorintheworld on Youtube talked about this once. It was a interesting.