Broken digital cameras in Japan
Unfortunately I couldn’t find any suitably silly survey for Sunday, so you’ll have to make do with this one, where japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey conducted by goo Research into the topic of broken digital cameras.
Demographics
Between the 17th and 21st of January 2008 1,092 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% of the sample was male, 16.2% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.
Picture of a broken Panasonic DMC-FX30 by Jeff Youngstrom
Research results
From the initial sample, 925 people, or 84.7% owned one or more of a digital compact camera, digital SLR camera, or digital video camera. Of this group, 27.5%, or 254 people, had experienced having a broken camera. This sub-group was asked the following questions.
Q1: What caused your camera to break? If more than one cause, or more than one broken camera, choose all that apply. (Sample size=254, multiple answer)
Votes Percentage Dropped and broke it 53 20.9% Dead straight out of the box 33 13.0% Banged against wall 11 4.3% Function problem (broke button, etc) 7 2.8% Dropped into liquid 4 1.6% Spilt liquid over it 4 1.6% Other 20 7.9% Don’t know what caused it 160 63.0% Q2: How did you get your camera fixed? Choose all that apply. (Sample size=254, multiple answer)
Votes Percentage Sent it back to the shop for fixing 101 39.8% Sent it to the maker for fixing 77 30.3% Didn’t get it fixed 60 23.6% Threw it out 30 11.8% Fixed it myself 5 2.0% Friend, family fixed it for me 2 0.8% Sent it to a specialist for fixing 0 0.0% Other 8 3.1% In addition, 99 people, or 39.0%, researched the cause of the fault or how to deal with it on the internet. They were asked the following question.
Q3: Did you manage to fix your problem after researching it on the internet? (Sample size=254)
Fixed the problem 13.1% Sometimes fixed, sometimes didn’t 19.2% Didn’t fix the problem 38.4% Couldn’t find out how to fix the problem 29.3%
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Drew said,
February 4, 2008 @ 07:13
Was there any explanation about what it meant for one’s camera to be “broken”? I’m technical so I wouldn’t consider mine to be broken unless there was something wrong with the physical hardware of it. Someone non-technical may consider their camera broken if the flash memory needs a format or whatever.
Ken Y-N said,
February 4, 2008 @ 08:53
Hi Drew, I suspect that the “I don’t know what caused it” covers everything from electronics melting to as you say, flash memory needing a format!
PeterD said,
February 4, 2008 @ 14:38
Banged against the wall? Didn’t realize that that was a particular problem for cameras…
Charles Jannuzi said,
February 5, 2008 @ 16:12
It’s a marvelous invention that has produced infinite amounts of bad photography. Now that all the mobile phones come with really awful digital cameras built in, I expect most Japanese will stop using their digital cameras–just like they have stopped using their computers and word processors.