世論 What Japan Thinks

Yet another new goo Research regular survey, this time the first look at home electrical appliances, reported on by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 23rd of August 2011 1,071 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.7% in their twenties, 20.8% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, and 28.1% aged fifty or older.

I’ve not bought anything myself recently from the list below, but I was surprised to see that 17% had bought a digital television, despite last year’s eco point discounts making them very affordable. Then again, given how flat-screen TV prices fall every year, perhaps last year’s models are down to the eco point discount levels?
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Another detailed survey from goo Research, this time looking at information device usage amongst older folk, the third time they have conducted their survey.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 22nd of June 2011, 8,393 older members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 76.6% of the sample were male, 48.6% of the men and 66.5% of the women were aged between 60 and 64 years old, 24.6% of the men and 21.6% were aged between 65 and 69 years old, 17.2% of the men and 8.7% of the women were aged between 70 and 74 years old, 7.9% of the men and 2.6% of the women were aged between 75 and 79 years old, and 1.6% of the men and 0.7% of the women were 80 years old or older.

Although the number of smartphone and tablet users is relatively low, I was suprised to see that between 40% and 50% have downloaded at least one paid app. It would have been very interesting to see what sort of applications they are paying for; newspapers or electronic books would be the stereotypical image I have, but what is the reality?
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An interesting survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into office software on home computers found that free suites are more popular.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 14th of August 2011 1,065 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.4% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

Note that I suspect that a number of people who got Microsoft Office or Works bundled with their system may have reported this as free software.

For myself, I occasionally use Open Office (Libre Office). I mostly use their Excel clone from that suite.
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A recent detailed survey report from goo Research was their third six-monthly look at the media usage situation.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 30th of May 2011 1,499 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

I use both TV and PC internet every day, both for longer than I’d like to admit to!
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Here’s a fun survey from goo Ranking that would be even better if it were split by sex, but even though it isn’t you can probably guess which answers each sex tended to choose in this survey into what things that your spouse does that get you irritated.

Demographics

Over the 6th and 7th of June 2011 1,148 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.6% of the sample were male, 12.1% in their teens, 16.9% in their twenties, 28.0% in their thirties, 25.4% in their forties, 9.7% in their fifties, and 7.9% 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. This survey was only for married people, but that figure was not reported.

The one that irritates me the most is her clipping her nails; I hate anyone using nail clippers and it really sets my teeth on edge. Actually, I don’t think I’ve told her straight out it annoys me so she should only do it when I’m not in the house, although she does know that it does annoy me.

I’m guilty of number three and I know it does annoy her, and recently she’s become addicted to a Japanese version of Farmville, which eats up vast amounts of the day and night for her.
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A recent survey from goo Research into electronic money used a rather narrow demographic of young male salarymen to produce its results.

Demographics

Between the 26th and 28th of July 2011 1,006 male members of the goo Reseach monitor group who lived in the Tokyo metropolitan area and were in full-time employment and had credit cards completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 100% male, with 25.1% aged between 30 and 34, 25.1% between 35 and 39, 25.0% between 40 and 44, and 24.8% between 45 and 49 years old.

My main credit card also works for electronic cash and my train ticket in postpay mode. I’m also very aware of gathering points, as at Hankyu group shops they print out your current point totals on the card when you shop. For my other credit cards, points are only printed on the monthly statements, so I tend to ignore them.

Just as a note, prepay systems are where you fill up your card with cash (some systems automatically debit your credit card) then spend the balance sitting in the card. Postpay systems are more like ordinary credit cards; there is no cash in your card, and at the end of the month you get a statement summarising all your transactions. I’m a postpay fan myself.
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The popular image of Japan is often as a high-tech paradise, but the results of surveys like this one from goo Research into dedicated word processing devices (reported on by japan.internet.com) makes one scratch one’s head trying to work out why the results were what they were.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 21st of July 2011 1,095 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.1% of the sample were male, 16.7% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

The Pomera is a nifty bit of mechanical engineering (I still have fond memories of my Psion 5!) but hopelessly overpriced, currently sitting at about 20,000 yen for a text-based monochrome screen with just 89 megabytes of memory. There is the argument that a dedicated word processor frees you from distractions, but on PCs, iPhones and Androids you can get hold of minimalist full-screen writing applications that give you a clean space to write. Now that I’m writing about this, I really should grab a copy for myself for drafting blog articles!
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iShare recently performed a survey that might be of interest to my readers who are residents in Japan, looking at where Japanese buy their contact lenses.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 11th of July 2011 1,187 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was pre-screened to select people who had purchased contact lenses for themselves within the last year. 50.1% of the sample were female and respondents were aged between 16 and 60 years old, but no further demographic breakdown was given.

I used to wear contact lenses, but gave up after I lost one in Japan and didn’t really fancy going to all the bother of getting measured up for a replacement. I think I did previously replace my contact lenses in Japan, but the name of the shop escapes me completely!
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iShare got away from earthquake-related topics and instead took a look at continuting studying correspondence courses. The study was conducted in conjunction with Tokyo Legal Mind and their correspondence course program iCara powered by LEC.

Demographics

Over the 5th and 6th in July 2011 1,723 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 70.5% of the sample were male, 12.1% in their twenties and 87.9% in their thirties. All of them were businesspersons in fulltime regular employment.

The timing of this is rather apt for me as I have just started doing an online correspondence course on internet marketing. The course starts off with a 30-day build-your-first-business course, with tasks every day; today I have to write a 500 word product summary and a 250 word About page, so spinning this report out over two days will give me a bit of breathing space!

The second half of the survey starts off with the subset of the sample who managed to continue correspondence courses all the way to the end.

As you can see by comparing the results of Q2SQ8 from the previous part and Q2SQ14 in this part, it was those who set a definite duration for their studying that tended to see things through to the end. This is what I am hoping is going to happen with my course too.

Note that attending lectures for correspondence courses includes watching on DVD or online, not just, or not at all attending in person.
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iShare got away from earthquake-related topics and instead took a look at continuting studying correspondence courses. The study was conducted in conjunction with Tokyo Legal Mind and their correspondence course program iCara powered by LEC.

Demographics

Over the 5th and 6th in July 2011 1,723 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 70.5% of the sample were male, 12.1% in their twenties and 87.9% in their thirties. All of them were businesspersons in fulltime regular employment.

The timing of this is rather apt for me as I have just started doing an online correspondence course on internet marketing. The course starts off with a 30-day build-your-first-business course, with tasks every day; today I have to write a 500 word product summary and a 250 word About page, so spinning this report out over two days will give me a bit of breathing space!

In Q2, doing a correspondence course while at school seems such an alien concept to me, but in Japan with cram schools being almost a necessity, more than likely most of the one in four who did correspondence courses as a child were studying for entrance exams.
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