世論 What Japan Thinks

I’ve not used an instant messenger for years and years, but my excuse is being an anti-social git. Sadly, this recent survey from the new-to-me survey organisation iBridge and published by japan.internet.com into instant messengers (IM) didn’t report on why Japanese seem to be fleeing instant messaging.

Demographics

On the 3rd of October 2008 300 members of the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.0% of the sample were male, 15.3% in their twenties, 40.7% in their thirties, 29.0% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 2.3% in their sixties.

By way of comparision, just over two years ago a similar survey on instant messaging in Japan found that nearly one in three were active users.

Research results

Q1: Do you know about Instant Messaging? (Sample size=300)

Know it well (to SQ1)	8.0%
Know a bit about it (to SQ1)	20.0%
Just heard the term	33.3%
Never heard of it	38.7%

Q1SQ1: Do you use an Instant Messenger at home, work or school? (Sample size=84)

Currently using (to SQ2)	22.6%
Used to use	40.5%
Never used	36.9%

Q1SQ2: What Instant Messenger do you use? (Sample size=19, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Windows Live Messenger	10	52.6%
Yahoo! Messenger	6	31.6%
MSN Messenger	5	26.3%
IP Messenger	2	10.5%
Google Talk	1	5.3%
Microsoft Messenger (Mac OS)	0	0.0%
Windows Messenger	0	0.0%
AOL INstant Messenger	0	0.0%
ICQ	0	0.0%
Other	2	10.5%