世論 What Japan Thinks

This survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, was their regular look at keitai (mobile phone) novels, a genre of writing designed to be read on a mobile phone, and often written on them too. Common features include short sentences, paragraphs and chapters, and a casual writing style featuring emoticons and graphical emoji icons. This is the 7th time this approximately bi-monthly survey has been conducted; the sixth survey translation is here for reference.

Demographics

Between the 26th and 30th of November 2010 1,087 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

Unfortunately, the article just notes the halt in the rise of smartphone readers of keitai novels without any analysis. I don’t really have any insights either, so any conjecture would be a pure guess, so I’ll refrain from making one.

Research results

Q1: Have you ever read a keitai novel? (Sample size=1,087)

Yes (to SQ1)	25.9%
No	68.1%
Don’t know the term	6.1%

Q1SQ1: In what media have you read a keitai novel? (Sample size=281, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Web site (to SQ2)	228	81.1%
Printed book version	117	41.6%
Other	0	0.0%

Q1SQ2: On what kinds of devices have you read keitai novel web sites? (Sample size=228, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Ordinary mobile phone	190	83.3%
Computer	112	49.1%
iPhone, BlackBerry, other smartphone	13	5.7%
PDA	2	0.9%
PHS	2	0.9%
Other	0	0.0%