世論 What Japan Thinks

This is one of these surveys that catches my eye and informs and entertains me at the same time, but also frustrates me as I’d love to learn more. What are mobile phones? Toys, fashion statements, or just lumps of plastic and electronics? japan.internet.com reported on a recent survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc on mobile phone obsessions. The article just presented a summary of some of the more interesting questions asked.

Demographics

Over the 6th and 7th of June 2007 300 mobile phone-using members of Cross Marketing’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based survey. The group was split 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

Note, I translated one of these difficult to get the right nuance for Japanese words, こだわる, kodawaru, as obsess, although perhaps the English word is a bit too strong.

In Q3, looking at other people’s phones, I wonder how much is checking out the actual phone type versus checking out their dangly bits or trying to sneak a peek at their email…
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I rarely use my mobile phone camera, with just the occassion snapping of a QR Code or the taking of memos of product names or part numbers for when going shopping, but I would find I missed it if it wasn’t there. To find out how others feel, goo Research conducted a survey (reported on by japan.internet.com) on the subject of mobile phone camera.

Demographics

Over the 8th and 9th of June 2007 goo Research interviewed 1,094 members of their monitor panel by means of a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.1% of the sample were male, 17.2% in their teens, 19.5% in their twenties, 17.9% in their thirties, 17.5% in their forties, 16.8% in their fifties, and 11.1% aged sixty or older,.

I’m not sure exactly of how many megapixels my mobile’s camera has, but I think it’s somewhere between one and two megapixels, and about 300,000 pixels on the inside camera. However, I wonder how much of the dissatisfaction with the megapixel count comes from setting the image capture size too low then importing the photos to a PC. My camera goes up to 1,280 by 960, but I can only take half a dozen photos before I run out of memory, so I usually use a lower resolution.
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With the worries about “stranger danger” in Japan far outweighing the reality of the situation, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research on the topic of children and mobile phones.

Demographics

On the 6th of June 2007 JR Tokai Express Research received 330 successfully-completed questionnaires from members of its internet monitor group aged between 30 and 59. 73.0% of the sample was female, 49.1% in their thirties, 33.9% in their forties, and 17.0% in their fifties.

Some of the proposed systems for tracking children are in my opinion worse than the original problem and are robbing children of their childhood.
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Perhaps I just don’t get enough phone calls and mail, but I’ve never had the experience of having my mobile phone battery run out on me. However, I have recently started regularly recharging my mobile at work as I got as a free gift at a conference a USB cable with multiple adaptors for recharging mobile phones and other devices. To discover what other people do about their mobile batteries, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into mobile phone batteries.

Demographics

Over the 30th and 30th of May 2007 300 mobile phone-using members of Cross Marketing Inc’s online monitor group successfully completed an online questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

Although battery technology is progressing and integrated hardware reduces the power consumption required for many features, as phones sprout more and more features and the manufacturers are pressed by market demands to reduce weight, the battery is often the first component to get slimmed down.

Note that for DoCoMo at least, and perhaps the other makers too, if you have kept the same phone for over two years they will give you a new battery pack free if you ask.

Note also that I reported on a similar survey on mobile phone batteries last year.
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With the Japanese market getting frankly rather crowded, with new electronic money services being launched every other week it seems, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by goo Research on the matter of Osaifu Keitai, or mobile phone electronic wallets.

Demographics

Between the 31st of May and the 2nd of June 2007 1,093 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.2% of the sample was male, 17.1% in their teens, 19.5% in their twenties, 18.0% in their thirties, 17.6% in their forties, 16.6% in their fifties, and 11.2% aged sixty or older.

Most new mobile phones are equipped with the FeliCa chip, the RFID electronics from Sony that powers almost all the smart cards in Japan, so it is perhaps not terribly surprising that the awareness of Osaifu Keitai is so high. I’ve actually never owned a phone with the chip, however.
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With summer coming up soon and thoughts turning towards travel, NEPRO Japan recently published the results of a survey it conducted on the topic of mobile phones and holidays. Here holidays covers everything from day trips to overseas travel.

Demographics

Over the 10th and 11th of May 2007 3,866 self-selecting users chose to complete a survey made available through the three major mobile menuing systems; NTT DoCoMo’s iMode, SoftBank’s Yahoo! Keitai, and au’s EZweb. 58% of the respondents were female, 3% in their teens, 34% in their twenties, 44% in their thirties, and 19% aged forty or older. As has been noted before for infoPLANT surveys, the self-selecting sample nature tends to attract heavy mobile phone users.

This is a rather disappointing study as a number of questions that I think should be multiple choice are asked as single answer ones, for instance. When we’ve been on domestic travel, we’ve never used our mobiles for anything other than just email or photographs, and international travel packet charges are too high to even contemplate taking a live mobile along, although wifey does take hers as an address book.
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Having heard a little about people accessing blogs and Social Networking Services (SNSs) from mobile phones, I obtained a lot of useful information from a recently-published report from infoPLANT on a survey they conducted into the use of blogs and SNSs from mobile phones and personal computers.

Demographics

Between the 15th and 22nd of May 2007 3,709 people self-selected themselves to complete a public survey offered through the NTT DoCoMo iMode menuing system. 61.9% of the sample was female.

This is one of those surveys that made me quite literally gasp! Although I know that the self-selecting nature of infoPLANT polls does bias towards heavy mobile phone users on unlimited plans, with the percentage of people on these kinds of plans increasing all the time, perhaps these figures suggest a general trend away from the computer and towards the mobile phone as the main portal for accessing the internet.
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infoPLANT recently published the results of a survey on the topic of electronic publishing contents consumption on mobile phones, or in other words reading books and magazines on a cell phone.

Demographics

Between the 8th and 15th of May 2007 5,380 people chose to complete a survey made publicly-available through NTT DoCoMo’s iMode mobile phone menuing system. 62.8% of the sample was female. As has been noted before and will be highlighted within the article below, this tends to bias the survey towards heavy users on unlimited usage plans, but unlimited plans are becoming the norm these days, with now over 30% of DoCoMo users on fixed-price plans.

Note that perhaps interestingly the original Japanese survey uses the term “comic”, not “manga” to describe the picture book format, so please don’t get upset by me using “comic” too!

I’ve personally never downloaded any reading material to my mobile phone, as I love the tangibility of real paper, and squinting at a tiny screen must be tiring on both the eyes and the arms.

SoftBank Mobile have also just recently started advertising that they have over 500 comic titles available for free download.
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Given that it seems most people upgrade their cell phones once every year or so (I actually haven’t seen any data for this!), MyVoice decided to look at the issue of mobile phone recycling.

Demographics

Over the first five days of May 2007, 15,165 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 46% of the sample was male, 2% in thier teens, 18% in their twenties, 40% in their thirties, 26% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

I passed my previous phone back to a DoCoMo shop for recycling, and I suppose I have to trust them to completely reset all the internal memory. Mobile phone manuals are often huge tomes that are rather difficult to find your way around – I’d prefer to refuse them for a small discount, and rely on some decent web search to find what I’m looking for. On their web site, DoCoMo offer PDF copies of their manuals for download, so I wonder why they don’t promote manual-less phones?

Note that most of the 3G Japanese phones come with SIM cards, so old phones can be used by just inserting the current, live card into the old phone.
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infoPLANT recently reported on a survey they conducted into mobile wallpaper. This concerns images for the idle screen on a mobile phone, called 待ち受け画面, machi-uke gamen, in Japanese.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 24th of April 2007 infoPLANT gathered 5,941 respondents by means of a publicly-advertised questionnaire available through NTT DoCoMo’s iMode mobile phone menuing system. This self-selecting sample was 36.8% male, 63.2% female. As noted in an earlier survey, these infoPLANT surveys tend to attract a disproporionately high percentage of people on unlimited usage plans, and those on unlimited plans tend to use pay sites more.

I recently downloaded a cute Rilakkuma wallpaper from a promotion through the convenience store chain Lawson, but unfortunately that promotion has finished so I can’t pass on the URL. However, if you’re looking for some San-X wallpaper for your PC, or want to try scaling down the images to fit your mobile’s screen size, here’s their official web page containing a good number of images of Rilakkuma, Tare Panda, Monokuro Boo, and many others, with not just wallpaper, but also screen savers and calendars.
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