世論 What Japan Thinks

A recent survey from iShare took a look at paying back lump sums on home loans, and found out, as usual, some interesting opinions.

Demographics

Between the 27th and 29th of July 2010 1,487 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. All the respondents had a home loan in either their own or their spouse’s name. 73.8% of the sample were male, 2.9% in their twenties, 30.1% in their thirties, and 67.0% in their forties.

Note than in Japan as far as I am aware the only form of home loan is a repayment mortgage. Despite endowment-type life insurance and hospital fee policies being popular, as far as I am aware there are no endowment loans, nor pension loans or other interesting but more risky methods. I did however see a loan advertised on the back of a newspaper in the train saying something like paying an extra 10% up front then absolutely zero interest for the 15 year duration of the loan!

You can see immediately from the demographics that few people in their twenties appear to have home loans, a surprising figure to me. In Q5, the reluctance to have loans is also a surprise; in the UK a mortgage is a fact of life, and car loans are also rather common. I’d like to see a survey delving further into the Japanese way of looking at lending.

My home loan is for a scary length with a scary amount of cash to pay back – I had hoped that What Japan Thinks and the rest of my empire would help out accelerate the repayment schedule, but sadly that hasn’t quite gone to plan…
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Ah yes, another wonderful trolling headline after my dog food survey from a few years back! Note that it means that 8% of cat owners make food for themselves that they sometimes either share or pass the left-overs to Tibbles, not that eight out of ten cat owners prefer Kit-e-Kat! Any, back at the survey, it was from DIMSDRIVE Research, looking at pet food, and dog and cat food in particular.

Demographics

Between the 24th of December 2009 and the 20th of January 2010 (another slow report!) 14,716 members of the DIMSDRIVE online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.8% of the sample were male, 0.8% in their teens, 8.8% in their twenties, 28.4% in their thirties, 33.5% in their forties, 18.7% in their fifties, and 9.8% aged sixty or older.

If I was buying a kitten now (as opposed to getting a free moggy) I’d probably go for a Scottish Fold. There’s a really lovely Scottish Fold that regularly visits a nearby pet shop – he’s very relaxed and doesn’t mind being the centre of attention when he’s out for walkies.
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And they’re also invisible to many of you lot, judging by my data! I mention this as today’s survey is from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into internet advertisements, with this report focusing on the contextual kind.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 20th of August 2010 1,074 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 17.2% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, and 26.9% aged fifty or older.

I personally think that most the people who say they haven’t see any contextual adverts in blogs on rews stories are mistaken – many popular news sites run adverts not just in the sidebars, but also have blocks right in the middle of stories, and I feel confident in saying that far less than 30% of the sample are running ad blockers.
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Today’s survey from goo Ranking looked at the matter of what changes in one’s partner do people feel after a year of dating, for both men looking at their girlfriends and women looking at their boyfriends.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of July 2010 1,159 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 63.4% of the sample were female, 12.4% in their teens, 21.1% in their twenties, 28.3% in their thirties, 23.6% in their forties, 8.2% in their fifties, and 6.4% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

It’s interesting that most of the events listed are rather negative. For me, I think all apply to the wife and me. However, it only took me two months to do number 4…
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Not having smoked, I cannot really relate to the answers in this survey from DIMSDRIVE Reseach into smoking and non-smoking, but I do have experience of quitting alcohol (well, at least going from a daily habit to once in a blue moon) with cold turkey and lots of water only.

Demographics

Between the 25th of November and the 10th of December 2009 (the reporting is rather slow!) 9,638 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.3% of the sample were male, 11.5% in their twenties, 32.8% in their thirties, 31.3% in their forties, 16.7% in their fifties, and 7.7% aged sixty or older. In addition, 64.0% were married, and 52.4% of the total sample had children.

Q1B at a first look appears to be contradictory to common sense, with men with children more likely to smoke than those with no children, but for women the position is reversed. However, for men this is probably explained by smokers being older, with the non-smoking message getting through to the younger generation who are in turn less likely to have had children yet. For women, the opposite trend is present – the younger generation is smoking more, plus of course as in Q7, getting pregnant or having children is an incentive for women to quit.
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iShare often make me smile with the curious topics they investigate, and this one is no exception, what secrets people want to take to the grave.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 6th of August 2010 415 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 33.7% in their twenties, 32.8% in their thirties, and 33.5% in their forties.

I’ve probably got one, no two, secrets that I’ll never mention; one is bad, the other is just embarrassing. That’s really about all I’m prepared to say regarding this survey!
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If you’re a learner of Japanese, or just wanting to get hold of classics of Japanese literature, the free repository Aozora is a good place to start, but judging by this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into Aozora, it’s not that well-known.

Demographics

Over the 19th and 20th of August 2010 1,080 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.15 in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.9% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.

Despite having said that everybody should read stuff off Aozora, I’ve read a grand total of one book from there. My excuse is that I don’t have a decent e-book reader; however there must be a decent solution for Japanese feature phones which I ought really to investigate!
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I think the buzzword in the English speaking world is Micro Four-Thirds, but in Japan they use mirrorless to describe the new generation of SLRs that have no optical viewfinder. To find out more about them, iShare took a look at the merits and demerits of mirrorless SLRs.

Demographics

Between the 13th and 17th of August 2010 1,114 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was prescreened to select those people who had used an SLR (either digital or optical) for more than three years and were familiar with the specifications for mirrorless SLRs. All the sample were over thirty years old, and 82.9% were male.

I’d like to get a mirrorless SLR, but as my wife doesn’t even trust me with our point-and-shoot, I’m afraid I wouldn’t get much use from it. Furthermore, as they don’t have at least 12 megapixels (or if they do, they don’t make a fuss about it) she won’t be interested.
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