世論 What Japan Thinks

With the rainy season over for all of Japan and the worst of the stifling humidity almost past, let’s take a look with MyVoice at a recent survey on what people think about household damp.

Demographics

Over the first five days of July 2007 13,139 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was male, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 14% aged fifty or older.

Luckily, we have a fancy bathroom that includes a drying feature, but my main concern about dampness is a stickiness on the veneer flooring. The moisture removing feature of our air conditioners keep the air clear, but the unpleasant feeling underfoot is much more difficult, if not impossible, to get rid of.

Our last flat, however, was a real moisture magnet, and especially in the bedroom during the winter moisture would accumulate really easily, and no amount of water-repelling spray or other devices could get around that problem.
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I’m glad it’s not just me, as whenever we have a video tele-conference at work I always try to hide out of the way of the camera, and just can’t bring myself to look at my own face on screen. I can just about cope with my photo in private, but seeing myself on the big screen is just too much for me! This fact in the headline was one of the interesting facts to come out of a recent survey by Cross Marketing Inc and reported by japan.internet.com on the subject of web cameras.

Demographics

On the 18th and 19th of July 2007 300 members of Cross Marketing Inc’s online monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based 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.

As a cross-reference, back in October of last year MyVoice looked at video calling on mobile phones, and there they found a similar lack of enthusiasm for video calling on mobile phones.
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Ahh, stress in Japan, I could write a book on it, but look, I’ve just got far too many things on my plate piling up already and I just can’t take my attention away from them and will you stop asking me to write more on it as I am planning on getting round to it but it’s rather difficult finding the time and I love my family more than my blogging; is that a crime? as you seem to be suggesting but then MyVoice published the results of a survey on stress.

Demographics

Over the first five days of July 2007 13,030 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was male, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 14% aged fifty or older.

One cold shower and two cold beers later: stress, and its darker cousin depression, is a serious problem in Japan, I feel, but not one that is very well understood. For example, a health-related magazine I read had a wee depression comic strip: guy transfers to a new devision as a team leader, gets under pressure and tries to live up to unreasonable expectations, working all hours, getting irritated and other classic symptoms. He goes to to talk to his old boss (over reasonable quantities of sake, of course) who tells him to not be so diligent and learn to delegate. And they all lived happily ever after. Ooh, and don’t get me started on reading advice from someone who should know better that ciggies and booze can relieve some stress.

I also wonder how much stress affects men in the trouser department, an unasked question below, as I suspect working on stress reduction (and fatigue reduction too) by for instance rationalising working hours could have a noticeable positive effect on the birth rate. Of course, I realise that changing the current working system is effectively impossible, but we have to have our dreams.
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One thing you soon notice in Japan is that a lot of people drink little bottles of… well, I’ve never really quite worked out exactly what is in these little bottles, but basically some supposedly healthy concoction. I did have one foreign friend who drunk them, but the smell of them was enough to put me off ever trying! To find out what the Japanese themselves are consuming, MyVoice performed a survey on these health drinks.

Demographics

Over the first five days of June 2007 13,228 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed an online survey. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 18% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties.

I suspect that some of these drinks do tend to quackery, but I don’t know what testing is required for them before they make their claims, although I would hazard a guess that the answer would be “not much”. Some of the advertisements have small captions saying that they are restricted to people over 15 and only one per day, so perhaps I should investigate the reason for that, although the cynical part of me says that it is just to try to convice the viewer of the potency of the brew.
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One of the latest fads in fruit these days seems to be the above “Godzilla’s egg”, an egg-shaped watermelon weighing in at a good few kilograms. As for me, one thing I miss in Japan is a real pear-shaped and pear-flavoured pear, not the watery apple-like thing that is all too common. Melons seem to missing something too, and don’t get me started on other entertainingly-shaped watermelons. However, I can’ t think of a smooth seque into a recent survey conducted by Yahoo! Japan Value Insight (ex infoPLANT) into the subject of fruit.

Demographics

Over the 29th and 30th of June 2007 300 members of the Yahoo! Japan Value Insight internet monitor panel completed an online questionnaire. Exactly 50:50 were male and female, but age groups are not listed, although these sorts of surveys from Value Insight tend to have the numbers in each age group evenly distributed.

You know when you’ve been in Japan too long when you order grapefruitS juice when speaking English.

There were also a few bonus facts added to the report. The full survey was 19 questions long, but just the highlights are in the translated article.

When buying Chuhai (cheap fruit-flavoured alcoholic drinks) rather than price it was flavour that was most important.

The survey was conducted a week after Snapple Peach and Rose Tea went on sale, and 13% were curious about the mix of peach and rose.

About one in three women were interested in buying high-quality fruit juices.

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I haven’t talked about Wikipedia for a while, so here goes with a report from japan.internet.com on the second regular survey from goo Research on Wikipedia. The previous survey was conducted two months ago.

Demogrpahics

Between the 9th and 13th of July 2007 1,045 members of goo Research’s online monitor group successfully completed an internet-based private questionnaire. 53.4% of the sample was male, 15.8% in their teens, 16.4% in their twenties, 22.3% in their thirties, 16.6% in their forties, and 29.0% aged fifty or older.
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I’m personally not convinced that natsu-bate, fatigue brought on by the summer heat, really does exist as a diagnosable illness, or whether it is just another thing the Japanese like to complain about, just like stiff shoulders. Regardless of whether it is real or not, here comes another slighly incongruous double-header from goo Research, conducted in conjunction with the Yomiuri Shimbun, looking at both the upcoming upper house elections and the summer heat.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 24th of June 2007 546 people in their teens to their thirties who were members of the goo Research monitor group completed an internet-based questionnaire. The group was split 50:50 male and female, and 37% attended school or university, 26% were full-time company employees, and 13% were homemakers. More detailed information was not presented.

I’m not particularly surprised by Junichiro Koizumi coming tops of the poll, and Abe barely ranking, but I am surprised by the foreign secretary Taro Aso coming second, but after his recent Alzheimer’s comment, I wonder if he would drop out of the rankings were the survey repeated today.
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Gadgets and widgets on the desktop annoy me; I have Google Desktop installed, but I keep it parked in the task bar as when it is active it either just gets hidden when I run applications maximised, or the frequent updates distract me when trying to do work in other windows. Additionally, Opera widgets just didn’t do anything for me. This survey by MyVoice looks at what the average Japanese internet user thinks of these desktop applications, widgets and gadgets.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 5th of June 2007 13,376 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a web-based questionnaire. 54% of the sample was female, 2% in their teens, 19% in their twenties, 38% in their thirties, 27% in their forties, and 14% in their fifties or older.

I’m not surprised that calendars come out on top – about half the people in my office run some ancient-looking calendar app on their desktops, but I’ve not seen anyone with anything else. I did once try out a Post-It Note™-like app or two, but as mentioned above for other application types, they just didn’t appeal to me at all.
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I keep wanting to download more games to my phone, but being a stingy git I never quite get round to it. In theory, since wifey has an unlimited packet deal (I keep telling her to use her phone more!) she can download and move to an SD card, then I can move it off the SD card onto my own phone. I must try that sometime. In the meantime, let’s look at a recent survey conducted by Yahoo! Japan Value Insight (ex-infoPLANT) on this topic of mobile phone applications, in particular NTT DoCoMo’s iAppli.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 22nd of June 2007 (this must be a misprint as the text says the survey was conducted over one week) 6,031 people, 57.6% female, self-selected themselves and completed a public questionnaire available through the NTT DoCoMo iMode menuing system. Note that the self-selecting nature of the survey attracts a high percentage of people on unlimited data download plans.

There’s a puzzle game I’ve seen a few people playing that I’d like to get hold of – the idea is to draw a picture in a 20×20 grid or so with a set number of blocks available for each row and column. Does anyone know what this is called? I also had fun doing a Kakuro in a copy of the Guardian I picked up on holiday, so I should search out an electronic version of that too.
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As much part of Japanese fireworks festivals as the explosives themselves, the outdoor stalls selling various foodstuffs always attract lots of hungry punters. To find out what people just have to buy at these outdoor stalls, goo Ranking asked an unspecified number of people from the goo Research online monitor group that very question between the 19th and 21st of June 2007.

For me personally, the smell of cooking and sauces actually puts me off rather than attracting me! What do you like to eat?
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