世論 What Japan Thinks

Chavs are a UK phenomenon; youths of ill-repute, often football hooligans, who were (and might still be) wont to dress in designer brands, with Burberry, and in particular Burberry baseball caps, being the item of choice. A recent survey conducted by MyVoice into high-class brands found that Burberry was also the most owned high-class brand in Japan.

Demographics

Over the first five days of December 2007 14,452 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 16% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 28% in their forties, and 15% in their fifties.

I don’t think I own any posh brand items and I think they are all a rip-off anyway! I do snigger, however, whenever I see Dunhill branded items, in particular fragrances, as for me they are forever associated with cigarettes. However, given Japanese male’s love affair with smoking, I suppose that’s a plus in Japan.

The photographed Chav-mobile is from Starphuk on flickr.
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Perhaps this Christmas many children in both Japan and the rest of the world found a mobile phone in their stockings. To see how elementary school-aged children view their phones, goo Research released on Christmas day the results of a survey of users of Kids goo (goo’s child-targeted portal) on children’s use of mobile phones.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 26th of November 2007 1,100 elementary school-aged users of the Kids goo portal completed a public survey available through the web site. 60.0% were girls, 3.7% in first year of elementary school, 4.8% in second year of elementary school, 7.7% in third year of elementary school, 20.0% in fourth year of elementary school, 28.9% in fifth year of elementary school, and 34.9% in sixth year of elementary school.

In Q6, it’s interesting to see the differences between the sexes; boys have significantly less contact with friends through mobile phones. The reasons for this would be fascinating to investigate further; is it that girls are more sociable with their friends, or do boys prefer to meet in person, or is there another driving force behind the differences?

In Q7 I’m really surprised that 45% of the mobile phone using children have basically no parent-enforced usage rules. I would hope that the parent has set up limits with the service provider such as blocking potentially harmful sites or even turning off internet access altogether, and other limits such as not allowing them to make any payments for site access or content download.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on another of these fascinating (for suitable values of fascinating) snippets of Japanese consumer behaviour as uncovered by a survey conducted by goo Research into digital cameras, focusing on camera modes in particular.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 9th of December 2007 1,097 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% were male, 16.6% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 11.8% aged sixty or older.

I use my digital camera in full auto, full silent mode on the whole, but I’ve tweaked the quality down to perhaps medium level; 3 mega-pixels instead of 5 mega-pixels, but high quality mode to try to save a bit of space on the memory cards, although having both a 1 gigabyte and a 512 megabyte card makes this a rather academic exercise. One of the answers for Q2 mentions “Scene Mode”; many cameras have multiple modes for specific situations, not just night, scenery and flash modes, but also close-up, food, baby and I think even pet mode too, although I haven’t studied my instruction manual in sufficient depth to work out what they all do, so just leaving it in auto mode covers 95% of the situations sufficiently.
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With much of Japan soon to be setting out on their New Year holidays, and the rest of Japan due to be kept updated every news bulletin on the traffic situation caused by the first group, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by goo Research into how people will be spending their New Year holidays, specifically regarding internet connectivity.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 20th of December 2007 1,083 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.9% of the sample was male, 17.7% in their teens, 19.9% in their twenties, 17.4% in their thirties, 17.6% in their forties, 16.6% in their fifties, and 10.6% aged sixty or older.

It may be useful to refer to a survey earlier this month on how long a New Year break people are having.

As I have no plans for travel, I cannot say what I plan to do, but if I were, I certainly wouldn’t bother taking a PC with me, but if it was available I would check my mail. Having said that, the last time I took an overnight stay, a couple of the free PCs in the lobby were loaded with slightly suspicious-looking applets in the icon tray, so I gave checking my email a miss just in case there was a keylogger installed on the machines.
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Read more on: goo research,holiday,Internet

This may seem a bit of a strange subject to handle on Christmas Day, but the 25th of the month is payday, and the last payday of the year includes a 源泉徴収表, gensenchoushuuhyou, or end of the year statement of earnings and tax paid (or a P60 for British people in the audience), which is an excuse for a slightly bumpy seque into a survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into final income tax returns, or 確定申告, kakutei shinkoku.

Demographics

On the 11th of December 2007 330 self-employed members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 66.4% were male, 6.4% in their twenties, 31.5% in their thirties, 40.6% in their forties, 16.4% in their fifties, and 5.2% in their sixties. You may have noticed that when JR Tokai Express Research has a survey with people drawn from employees in the public and private sector the male percentage is over 80%. It might be interesting to find out why there is a higher ratio of self-employed women in their monitor panel.

I don’t know if many foreigners are aware of it, but if you spend over 100,000 yen or so (sorry, I don’t have the exact figures!) over the last calendar year on medical bills, including doctors’ fees, prescription medicines and traveling expenses you can claim back tax on the extra money. There are of course exceptions like gold teeth, ningen dock (full preventitive checks taking from half a day to two days) and quackery, but it’s always worth saving your receipts just in case.
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With the end of the year coming up and perhaps people’s wallets looking a little bare, let’s look back on the year with goo Ranking and see what men spent too much cash on and what women spent too much cash on

Demographics

I’ve managed to find demographics for these ranking surveys! Between the 21st and 22nd of November 2007 1,101 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 49.3% were male, 6.2% in their teens, 15.4% in their twenties, 30.2% in their thirties, 27.1% in their forties, 11.0% in their fifties, and 10.3% aged sixty or older.

Of course, the other survey I’d love to see is what people thought their spouses had spent far too much cash on this year!
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Read more on: goo ranking,money,Silly

The stereotypical Christmas feast in Japan is a bucket of fried chicken from Colonel Claus with a strawberry sponge for afters, but what is the real situation? In particular, Christmas Eve is a holiday this year due to the Emporer’s birthday falling on a Sunday, so the day off has been moved forward a day to the 24th of December, and it is Christmas Eve that gets celebrated rather than Christmas Day. To find out what people’s plans were, Macromill Inc reported on a survey it conducted into Christmas 2007.

Demographics

Over the 5th and 6th of December 2007 516 members of Macromill’s online monitor group resident within either Tokyo or the three surrounding prefectures of Chiba, Saitama or Kanagawa successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The group was split exactly 50:50 male and female, and 24.8% were in thier twenties, 25.2% in their thirties, 25.3% in their forties, and 24.8% in their fifties.

Note that when asked how people plan to spend Christmas, as noted above this refers to Christmas Eve, by chance a public holiday this year, not Christmas Day, a normal workday this and every other year.

The other Japanese Christmas tradition is for couples to go on a date, often ending up with an overnight stay at a hotel, usually a posh one.
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Following on in a way from the recent survey on changes in internet services, this time japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into mobile phone usage in 2007.

Demographics

Over the 12th and 13th of December 2007 300 mobile phone-using members of the Cross Marketing monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample 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.

My number of emails is similar, although packet volume has increased due to getting a Deco-Mail (HTML graphic mail) compatible phone! Internet usage is slightly down, as the higher-end phone means I tend to get more graphic-heavy pages pushed at me. Voice calling is as non-existent as ever, despite a talking dog trying to persuade me otherwise! What about you lot?

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Last year I looked at a survey on influenza issues, but this year it’s a different kind of virus, the computer sort, that we look at in a survey conducted by goo Research into 60-79 year old computer users and security matters.

Demographics

Over the 6th and 7th of December 2007 613 members of the goo Research monitor panel were interviewed. 50.1% were female, 73.6% in their sixties, and 26.4% in the seventies.

One-click fraud is a type of fraud perhaps not unique to Japan, but Google doesn’t turn up any reports from other countries when searching in English. Basically the idea is that you get a spam, or click on a link somewhere and end up at the target page which suddenly tells you you’ve registered and need to pay a vast sum of money for monthly membership, or they’ll send the boys round. This seems to work well in Japan due to some combination of unwillingness of the victims to cause a fuss and weak consumer protection and other law enforcement. Actually, my wife ended up on somewhere similar after filling in details on a prize draw advertised through Chikyuu no Arukikata’s web site (Japan’s top independent traveller guide brand) and had to change email addresses due to 40-plus emails per day pestering her to join a dating site. I told her to complain to Chikyuu no Arukikata for betraying her trust, but even though she is quite expert at flame mails in other cases, she seemed reluctant for some reason I couldn’t deduce.
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The internet, the information super-highway, is supposed to be this great conduit of information by which everyone can gather information on whatever they please. To find out how the Japanese are plugging into these vast resources, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into using the internet to garner information.

Demographics

On the 27th of November 2007 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed in the public or private sector completed a private online questionnaire. 78.2% of the sample was male, 9.7% in their twenties, 37.5% in their thirties, 36.0% in their forties, 12.1% in their fifties, and 4.8% in their sixties.

It is not clear from the survey whether just computer-based internet access was counted, or if mobile phone usage was included.

Quite frankly, this survey seems fatally flawed as Q1 does not include Wikipedia (which is itself fatally flawed) as I must admit that for simple factual data I do reference it, and given that is seems to often appear in four in five of Japanese surfers’ search results, to not include it would be an oversight.

If you too want to gather information on train times, NihonHacks recently had an article on how to do it.
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Read more on: Internet,jr tokai express research