世論 What Japan Thinks

A recent report from japan.internet.com on a survey conducted by iBridge Research Plus stuck together two slightly disjoint topics: the first, the focus of the survey, was noises from electrical items, the second being robocalls, prerecorded calls being blasted to your telephone or mobile phone.

Demographics

On the 24th of August 2009 300 members of the iBridge Research Plus monitor group succesfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample were male, 18.0% in their twenties, 40.3% in their thirties, 36.0% in their forties, 5.0% in their fifties, and 0.7% in their sixties.

The noise is not electromagnetic hum – which would be an interesting topic in itself – but alert tones and tunes such as the wee ditties that my rice cooker and washing machine play on completion, or the automatic bath filler shouting “Your bath is drawn!” when it finishes. I think simple confirmation beeps when using buttons or remote controls are excluded from the survey, given that only 69.0% said they had noisy electricals.

Research results

Q1: Are you bothered by electronic noises from home electrical items? (Sample size=300)

All of it bothers me	3.7%
Some bothers me	29.3%
None bother me	36.0%
Don’t have any noisy electricals	31.0%

Q2: Have you ever had a robocall on your fixed line or mobile phone? (Sample size=300)

Yes (to SQ)	16.3%
No	66.0%
Don’t know	17.7%

Q2SQ: Did you feel uncomfortable when you got a robocall? (Sample size=49)

Yes	53.1%
No	42.9%
Don’t know	4.1%

Putting the two together we get:

Q2+Q2SQ: Has a robocall ever made you feel uncomfortable? (Sample size=300)

Yes	8.7%
No	7.0%
Don’t know	0.7%
Never had a robocall	66.0%
Don’t know if I’ve had a robocall	17.7%

There’s a lot of interesting data in this short survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into recording television programs, although I’d like to have seen a larger sample size and a more detailed look at some of the data.

Demographics

Between the 27h and 30th of August 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 2.0% in their teens, 18.0% 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.

The more detailed information I’d like (perhaps I’ll get it some time from goo Research’s regular digital TV survey?) is to see if people are currently buying either DVD or Blu-Ray recorders for their digital terrestrial decoders or for their recording capabilities, as it can be seen in Q1SQ2 that the recorders based around the dead HD DVD format are just as popular for time-shifting as Blu-Ray devices. With the analog switch-off less than two years away (24th July 2011), many of the almost one-in-three still using tape are going to find themselves in some trouble, I suspect.

I watch more real-time television – I use the weekends to catch up on stuff I’ve missed.
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Maids versus butlers would be a good title for a video game I suspect, but here it is just two related surveys from iShare, one on maids and the other on butlers.

Demographics

For the maid survey, between the 10th and 17th of August 2009 618 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.6% of the sample were male, 34.3% in their twenties, 30.4% in their thirties, and 35.3% in their forties.

For the butler survey, between the 11th and 18th of August 2009 587 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.7% of the sample were male, 33.6% in their twenties, 32.0% in their thirties, and 34.4% in their forties.

I’ll report the two surveys interleaved as the questions are similar in each. First will be the maid question which I will suffix with an M, so we get Q1M, for instance, then the butler question with a B, as in Q1B, etc.

Both maid cafes and butler cafes exist in Japan, as do female butler cafes, and no doubt male maid ones do too, but I’m not really in the mood for searching. Incidentally, I’ve recently twice seen on my train back from work a guy looking like a very ordinary otaku type except for a cheap maid dress, trying to hide his stubble behind some foundation, so perhaps he works at some low-end seedy male maid joint?
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goo Research, in a survey reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at mobile phones, with this report focusing on the usage of the address books within mobile phones.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 24th of August 2009 1,070 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.1% of the sample were male, 16.7% in their teens, 17.9% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, 15.9% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

I haven’t backed up my mobile’s phone book for at least a year, I think, but then again I have so few entries that last year’s backup is probably still valid!

I was suprised to see that only about 5% use the shortcut dial feature, less than those typing numbers in directly. As far as I know most mobile phones have a feature where if you type in the address book index (one or two digits are OK, I think) then press the dial button it dials that entry, which is handy for me as my wife is registered in slot one.
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Here’s a rather interesting survey from goo Research and Keio University’s SFC Research Centre into information sources for the personal learning process.

Demographics

Between the 15th and 18th of May 2009 1,050 members of the goo Research consumer monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.4% of the sample were female, 20.3% in their teens, 19.7% in their twenties, 19.6% in their thirties, 20.2% in their forties, and 20.2% aged fifty or older.

As a resident of Japan, one problem I have in the office with officially-sponsored learning is that it is all in Japanese! However, one great way to avoid these language problems at a low cost is provided by the company that Koichi at Tofugu works with as a tutor. The people at eduFire offer low-cost online training in a million and one topics (well, currently at least 27 major ones with lots of sub-topics) through the internet using Skype. One of Koichi’s specialities is Japanese language courses, and from what I’ve seen of his stuff, I can heartily recommend him and have confidence that the rest of the services offered will also be well worth the money. The tutors there are all available for realtime interaction, all just a mouse click away.

It’s not free, but just $29 (2,600 yen or so) gets you a one month unlimited access SuperPass for not just Japanese lessons, but lots of other courses like marketing, Confucius Philosophy, or indeed English, stuff that could cost you hundreds of thousands of yen through traditional routes. For a cheap preview, they also offer one week for one dollar, so you can give it a go with minimal risk. This is cheaper that the free lessons I’ve seen at my regional international centre, once you factor in travelling expenses, as you’re in the classroom right now!

Career stagnation is a problem that many face, so in these tough economic times $29 per month to improve your CV/resume is a cheap way to help yourself out!

Disclosure: What Japan Thinks receives a commission from eduFire for completed sign-ups.
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I decided to give the FAIL keyword a miss on the headline this time for a survey from goo Ranking looking at one’s partner’s stingy behaviour that leaves you cold, for both men looking at women’s stinginess and women looking at men’s stinginess.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 24th of July 2009 1,026 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 48.2% of the sample were male, 8.0% in their teens, 14.6% in their twenties, 28.8% in their thirties, 26.0% in their forties, 12.5% in their fifties, and 10.1% 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.

Even when we were dating, I suppose I was guilty of just about all the penny-pinchings listed by the women below! I do remember the first time we stayed overnight in a hotel, when it came to paying the bill I expected her to pay half – maybe it’s differences in perception, but not going Dutch by default when dating is always a bit strange to me.
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One nice thing (from a shopping, not environmental point of view) in Japan is that many department stores give you a nice simple paper bag with handles for your purchases; not the cheap thin brown paper supermarket bags as seen in the US, but a decent reusable one. Brand stores and posh cake shops also give away better quality paper bags, so to see what happens when they get taken home, iShare looked at reuse of paper bags.

Demographics

Between the 8th and 11th of August 2009 586 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.7% of the sample were male, 34.3% in their twenties, 31.1% in their thirties, and 34.6% in their forties.

We have a huge amount of paper bags stocked up, probably a few hundred, although we do reuse about one per month for either just as a container when taking things to the monther-in-law, or as a posh wrapper for a cheap souvenir to friends.

Interestingly, there’s a second-hand handbag and other branded item shop that regularly advertises in a local free paper that offers a few hundred yen per Gucci or Chanel paper bag that you might want to bring along.
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I’ve never had any external memory die or get lost, but this recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com showed that between one in five and one in six Japanese had suffered such problems with external memory.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 14 of August 2009 1,085 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.8% in their teens, 16.6% in their twenties, 21.1% in their thirties, 17.7% in their forties, 15.7% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

Due to the lack of a suitable graph, I’ve instead used a picture from yoppy on flickr.
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MyVoice recently took a look at how Japanese use hotels and other lodgings, in particular what criteria they use for selecting them.

Demographics

Over the first five days of August 2009 13,801 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 16% in their twenties, 33% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 20% aged fifty or older.

The last hotel I stayed in was the Westin Awaji, which is a very nice hotel in a great location. One of the criteria we used was me having a point card, and another was being a western-style managed hotel, as the previous night we’d stayed in a Japanese-managed hotel. One big difference was that the Westin had a whole non-smoking floor, the other one had just half a dozen rooms at the far end of one corridor that still had a lingering hint of tobacco clinging to the walls. However, the Westin was disappointing for food, especially the breakfast was not the full buffet one expects from their chains.
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First there was happoshu, a most foul fizzy alcohol drink, then there was third sector beer brewed from non-traditional ingredients like corn, peas, and old socks. Now there is new genre fourth sector beers, which seem to be going back to being based on the traditional barley, but with lower sugar, carbohydrates, purine, and taste content. This new genre of brews were the subject of a survey from MyVoice.

Demographics

Over the first five days of August 2009 13,517 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 15% were in their twenties, 34% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 21% aged fifty or older.

I recently had some Style Free, I think it was, a zero carbohydrates drink with just 35 or so calories a can, which was surprisingly pleasant, and without the heavy sugary aftertaste of many other canned beers. It seems to be a happoshu rather than a new genre beer, but let’s ignore that and continue with my description. The morning after was better as well, without an overnight festering of sugars in my mouth. I recommend you give them a try – they are cheap and with dozens of different brands, there’s lots of scope for finding one that suits your palate.

Oh, and a quick shout-out to Gaijin Tonic, where you might or might not find reviews of some of the fine products listed below.
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