世論 What Japan Thinks

The title of this post is me being rather creative (read “outright lying”) regarding the results of Q2, but regardless, this survey conducted by Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into internet scariness finds the average Japanese web user quite the tim’rous beastie.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 23rd of March 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

If you don’t know what goatse.cx is, think yourself lucky, and do NOT, I repeat NOT, just look it up to see what I am on about! You have been warned.

I personally don’t find the internet scary at all; irritating in places, but not scary.

For reference, in December of 2007 a similar survey was conducted.

Research results

Q1: Have you ever felt the internet is scary? (Sample size=300)

Yes (to SQ)	77.3%
No	22.7%

Q1SQ: At what sort of times did you feel the internet was scary? (Sample size=232, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
When lots of popup windows opened	101	43.5%
When I got a virus	77	33.2%
When I got a bill for something I didn’t remember	60	25.9%
When my personal information got leaked	45	19.4%
When I saw a scary picture, video	31	13.4%
When I got into an argument on a bulletin board, etc	22	9.5%
When I got addicted to a game, bulletin board, etc	21	9.1%
When there was backbiting on a bulletin board	16	6.9%
When friends, family personal information got leaked	13	5.6%
When real-life relations broke down over internet issues	10	4.3%
Other	24	10.3%
No particular time was scary	39	16.8%

One of the most common “other” incidents was when spam increased.

Q2: Do you currently think the internet is scary? (Sample size=300)

Yes, really scary	11.7%
Yes, scary to some degree	72.7%
No, not really scary	14.7%
No, not scary at all	1.0%

Q3: How scary do you feel the internet is compared to a year ago? (Sample size=300)

Scarier than last year	24.0%
As scary as last year	65.7%
Less scary than last year	9.7%
Didn’t use the internet a year ago	0.7%

Hands obtained from the work-safe Goatse Sticker site.