世論 What Japan Thinks

A recent survey from Marsh Inc, reported on by japan.internet.com, into web site viewing habits showed that very few people have discovered the joy of RSS.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 7th of March 2010 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was 50:40 male and female, 2.3% in their teens, 17.7% 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.

Even my mother’s worked out how to access my RSS feed, so I don’t know why the figure is so low in Japan. However, it might have something to do with 68.7% having a news or portal as their home page, neither of which really suit RSS readers.

Personally, I don’t really know how many web sites I’ve got set up in Google Reader, but it’s probably close to 40. The first page I access is usually my stats page for this site!
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This recent survey from iShare into overtime turned up quite a lot of data that to me as a westerner seems unbelievable, but as a worker in a Japanese firm I find it not really that unusual.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 26th of February 2010 451 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.1% of the sample were male, 31.7% in their twenties, 32.8% in their thirties, and 35.5% in their forties.

My overtime has actually increased since last year, despite work introducing measures to reduce working hours! The people targeted were those doing 60 hours a month overtime, but as the measures replaced a nominal 18 hours overtime in the monthly salary with an explicit measure, I now do 20 hours to try to make up for the loss in salary. Despite these measures people still work far too long but just lie on their timesheets, so my employer (note, not the union!) is actively trying to get people to go home earlier.
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There’s something that hints of inherent sexism, or at least something that reflects the social standing of young women in Japan, in this survey from goo Ranking into what stuff that a girl was very knowledgable about would cause you to think “Oh!”. The survey used the term “girl”, but I think that includes young women.

Demographics

Over the 22nd and 23rd of January 2010 1,102 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were female, 12.6% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 27.9% in their thirties, 25.5% in their forties, 9.3% in their fifties, and 6.3% 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.

I hope I got the right “Oh!” here, one of impressed surprise, rather than an “Oh-oh!” kind of “Oh!”.

I’m not really sure why medical terminology is in the list, as even being sexist about it one would expect someone interested in being or studying towards becoming a nurse, for instance, to be familiar with such terms. Hmm, perhaps it is an “Oh-oh!” kind of “Oh!”? Then again, astronomy and architecture, for instance, is surely more of an “Ooooh!” kind of “Oh!”?
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Here’s an interesting survey from goo Ranking, looking at what people would like to do, but they haven’t got the courage to commit to it, for both men and women.

Demographics

Over the 22nd and 23rd of February 2010 1,123 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.6% of the sample were female, 9.6% in their teens, 22.2% in their twenties, 32.1% in their thirties, 24.9% in their forties, 7.5% in their fifties, and 3.8% 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.

I can certainly identify with the starting my own business one, although not having a business plan of any coherence doesn’t really help much. My first real one are probably telling off ill-mannered people – I had an old granny push into line in front of me today and I was tempted to growl something in exceptionally rough Kansai dialectic slang, but she’d probably either have had a heart attack or called the store detectives…

I’ve had numerous foreign holidays by myself, but I know from the reactions from many Japanese friends that travel outside a tour group, let alone solo, is seen as something very bold.
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There comes a time in everyone’s life that keeping up appearances for the sake of the opposite sex becomes just too much bother, so goo Ranking took a look at when men and women felt their juices had stopped flowing.

Demographics

Over the 22nd and 23rd of January 2010 1,102 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were female, 12.6% in their teens, 18.4% in their twenties, 27.9% in their thirties, 25.5% in their forties, 9.3% in their fifties, and 6.3% 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.

The Japanese title of the survey is rather difficult to capture in English, so I’ve gone for a pun instead.

I’ve never been interested in 1 and 3 in the first place, so I don’t really know what that says about me!
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Well, at least two-thirds of a sample made up from internet users, according to this survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com into internet banking.

Demographics

Between the 25th and 28th of February 2010 1,080 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.1% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.1% in their twenties, 21.8% in their thirties, 16.1% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

I’ve used my Japanese bank’s internet service exactly once! However, I do use my UK bank’s service about once a month on average.
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As I read mostly English-language web sites and having heard stories such as 40% of US purchases being bigital, when I came across this survey from Media Interactive, reported on by japan.internet.com, into music, I was quite surprised to see the data for Japan, especially since this is an internet-based sample that would be expected to have a bias towards online shopping.

Demographics

Over the 1st and 2nd of March 2010 exactly 1,000 regular music listeners completed an internet-based questionnaire. 50.6% of the sample were male, 0.3% in their teens, 15.8% in their twenties, 30.7% in their thirties, 28.9% in their forties, 16.2% in their fifties, and 8.1% in their sixties.

In Q3 I’m quite surprised that radio is grouped into the “other” category, and although streaming sites seem to be popular in the UK and the USA, they don’t get a mention here – do they in fact exist in Japan? Additionally, the number of freetards seems comparatively rather low.
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The next milestone for electronic cash, the subject of a recent survey from goo Research (the 14th in the regular series) and reported on by japan.internet.com, is two-thirds of the sample having experienced electronic cash, a figure which should be reached by summer, I suspect.

Demographics

Between the 15th and 18th of February 2010 1,086 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 15.9% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, and 28.3% aged fifty or older.

Note that the survey is looking only at credit card form-factor cash, not IC chips embedded into mobile phones.

I use mine mostly for trains and in-station shops, as it doesn’t come out of my monthly budget. When I first got my card I did use it at a restaurant and book store, but I found out that thrice as many points were on offer if I used the credit card function instead!
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Yet another positive noise that the Democratic Party of Japan have made since coming into power is the discussion of a smoking ban to prevent second-hand smoking, a topic that was the subject of this recent survey from iShare. Like many other of the DPJ’s proposals, however, this is a rather half-baked idea that doesn’t at the moment have any fines proposed for non-compliance, and a lack of joined-up government has seen talk of punative cigarette tax shelved.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 23rd of February 2010 411 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.5% of the sample were male, 28.7% in their twenties, 32.6% in their thirties, and 38.7% in their forties.

Quite frankly, I find the smoking rates hard to believe. The usual figures I hear quoted are a little over 30% of men and 10% of women, yet here we have 23% and 12%, yet 19% male quitters and an incredible 18% female quitters!

I think there’s only one restaurant that I frequent that makes no particular attempt to separate smokers; all the rest are either all non-smoking or at least make a decent attempt to keep the smokers at bay.
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iBridge Research Plus recently conducted a survey into video chat, although the portion that japan.internet.com chose to report on was just on chat in general.

Demographics

On the 15th of February 2010 300 members of the iBridge monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.7% of the sample were female, 11.7% in their twenties, 39.7% in their thirties, 33.7% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 2.3% in their sixties.

I don’t do chat at all, although I have used Skype as a telephone.

Oegaki chat was a new one to me – this is chat through a handwriting interface. I found an interesting article describing this phenomenon that gives a good background on what exactly it is.
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