世論 What Japan Thinks

Mobile Marketing Data Labo recently published the results of a survey into coupon usage, specifically looking at differences between smartphone and feature phone usage patterns.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 24th of February 2013 500 people who had used coupons were selected to complete the survey. Furthermore, 250 of these people selected were feature phone users, and the other 250 smartphone users. All were aged 20 or older, but no further demographics were provided.

I relatively rarely use coupons. I have a small repertoire of restaurants I like to visit, so I already know which allow coupons. Specifically, Satoyama Dining gives me a 10% off coupon if I complete the questionnaire after eating, and Kamakura Pasta (branches everywhere) who occasionally send me three 10% off coupons, each with slight variations on my name spelling!
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Two recent-ish Research Panel Day Researches looked at curing a couple of food-related ailments, a fish bone in the throat and a dose of hiccups.

On the 18th and 19th of March 2012 197,678 members of their monitor panel were asked how they most often got a fish bone unstuck from their throats. The most popular solution with 59.1% of the votes was swallowing a mouthful of rice, the Japanese variant on the method my mother taught me, swallowing dry bread. Next was 13.0% who don’t do anything in particular, 6.3% gargle, 3.7% get tweezers, etc and fish it out themselves, 2.1% go to hospital, and 4.6% some other technique. Furthermore, 9.7% had never had a fish bone stick, and another 1.4% don’t eat fish.

Back in 2011, on the 17th and 18th of June of that year, 162,994 members of their monitor panel were asked what they do when they cannot stop hiccuping. The most popular solution was holding one’s breath, with 42.5% doing this; I do this and press down on my diaphram at the same time. 30.5% gulp a glass of water, 10.8% slowly breath in, 7.0% drink from the other side of a glass, 5.3% get people to suprise them, 1.9% get people to slap them on their back, and 0.4% grab their tongues in their hands and pull it for several seconds! There were 21.7% who used other techniques (hopefully none the above-pictured one!), and just 1.2% who have never had the hiccups.

japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey conducted by Dentsu Innovation Institute into selling over-the-counter medicines on the internet. The full report is available as a PDF here.

Demographics

During March 2013 2,000 people were chosen by unspecified means to answer a PC internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50:50 male and female, and each age band from twenties to sixties contained 200 males and 200 females.

A recent Japan Times editorial explained the situation in more detail; basically there are three categories of non-presecription drugs. The first category is for drugs that can only be sold in pharmacies, and the second and third in pharmacies or other stores with a registered sales assistant, who is obliged to provide information regarding side-effects, etc. As can be seen in Q2, the categories are very, very broad.
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goo Ranking reported on a survey into what women think men should check at a minimum regarding their personal grooming.

Demographics

Over the 6th and 7th of March 2013 1,083 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.7% of the sample were female, 11.6% in their teens, 15.0% in their twenties, 24.9% in their thirties, 24.7% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 11.1% 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. This question was for the females only.

Number 22, clothes not being creased (that is, ensuring they were recently ironed) is one that I never understand in Japan. Most people are well-dressed for almost every occasion, but ironing is usually skimped on (both men and women), and regardless of how trendy an item is, if it looks as if you put it on straight out of the washing machine it never looks good to me.
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goo Ranking published a survey on what behaviour by Japanese people abroad that they have seen and thought “I really shouldn’t do that sort of thing myself…”.

Demographics

Over the 6th and 7th of March 2013 1,083 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.7% of the sample were female, 11.6% in their teens, 15.0% in their twenties, 24.9% in their thirties, 24.7% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 11.1% 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.

As pictured above, as a foreigner who has participated in Japanese tours abroad, that sort of group photo behaviour is quite embarrassing from my point of view. Another behaviour that I witnessed that I would certainly never think of trying myself was when our tour was waiting by our bus, which happened to be a brightly-painted old-fashioned bus, when a young couple came along and asked one of our party if they could take their photo. After this was done, four of the middle-aged ladies in the group one after another asked if they could get their photo taken with the boyfriend, handing their camera to the girlfriend to make sure she was out of the picture.
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A recent survey from goo Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, looked at web site viewing, the seventh time this regular survey has been performed, and found that tablets were surprisingly (to me at least) less popular than feature phones when it came to selecting a main surfing device.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 11th of April 2013 1,090 mobile phone- (including smartphone-) using members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.6% of the sample were female, 3.1% in their teens, 23.1% in their twenties, 37.1% in their thirties, 25.5% in their forties, and 11.2% aged fifty or older.

I’m beginning to seriously consider using a tablet as my main tool for home, replacing my netbook, although I do need to find a decent text editor with macros in order to produce all the tables I use. If anyone has any good recommendations, I’m all ears. And no, Emacs for Android is most certainly not a good recommendation!

In Q1SQ1, I’d like to know more about why about half the smartphone users choose it as their primary surfing device, but only one in five tablet users do so. I suspect it is something to do with the smartphone being more portable thus usable on the train when commuting, and perhaps a lot of tablets are wifi only, so have less connectivity.
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Research Panel published the results of a short Day Research (the day being the 23rd of April 2013) survey of 35,848 members of their online monitor group into how people would react to being listed for restructuring.

The top reaction would be to just accept the company’s request and quit, with 63.7% doing so. However, 20.2% would say they would accept any position within the company, then 9.4% would fight the company through the courts. The remaining 6.7% had never worked, so couldn’t answer!

With the cherry blossom season over bar a handful of the northern prefectures and Hokkaido, this survey struggles for relevance due to me being a bit slow to translate japan.internet.com’s report on goo Research’s o-hanami, cherry blossom viewing.

Demographics

Between the 28th and 30th of March 2013 1,087 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.6% of the sample were male, 13.4% in their teens, 15.6% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 17.1% in their forties, 15.1% in their fifties, and 17.4% aged sixty or older.

Technically, it is just any flower viewing, not just cherry blossoms, but I assume that the reference is to cherry blossoms only.

This year, I didn’t go to any cherry blossoms. In fact, now I think about it, I’ve only actually twice been to them, both with my wife – I’ve never taken part, and don’t really want to take part, in the ritual drinking on a blue sheet under the trees.
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A topic that has recently come to the fore is buses and/or trains running around the clock in Tokyo. It was covered on last night’s news as one of the ideas being floated to increase Japan’s attractiveness to foreign investors. However, one major negative issue is that currently the last train home is often the only excuse employees have for leaving work (labour protection laws are poorly enforced, and the pressure from societal norms means a lot of unpaid overtime is worked) or indeed obligatory after-work drinkies, so removing the final escape route could make the average employees lot much worse.

So, with that in mind, Yahoo! conducted an open news poll asking is 24 hour city buses and underground necessary? At the time of writing, seven days into an ten-day poll, 41,587 people have voted. 22% say both are needed, 5% say buses only, and 17% underground only. However, these three are outweighed by the noes to both, with 58% saying that both forms of round-the-clock public transport are not necessary.

Mobile Marketing Data Labo recently performed a survey into true feelings about one’s mobile carrier’s network, and found SoftBank’s reputation for being a poor network is ill-deserved.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 4th of April 2013 1,200 smartphone-owning members of the MMD monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionniare. Each of the three major carriers, docomo, au and SoftBank, were represented by 400 people. No further demographics information was given.

Note that one reason for the high degree of satisfaction amongst SoftBank users is that the iPhone is their main smartphone, and we all know that Apple users always rank themselves the most satisfied when it comes to these sorts of stories. I wonder how much this Apple love rubs off on the user’s impression of the ease snd speed of connection questions?
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