世論 What Japan Thinks

Macromill Research Inc released an up-to-the-minute survey into spring storms, as Japan has been suffering from them this weekend.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 9th of April 2013 1,000 members of the Macromill monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% in each age band from the twenties to the sixty years old or more group.

For me the storm was a bit of an anti-climax; we had a few hours of horizonal rain, but nothing out of the ordinary compared to when I grew up and we used to have two or three days-work of Atlantic gales to handle. I always feel the same way with typhoons; they can be nasty when they pass straight overhead and you are in a mountainous area or flood plains which amplifies the effect of the rain, but preparations, tying everything in the garden down, always feel like a waste of time.
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This recent short report from japan.internet.com on a survey by goo Research into IT device security, the second time they have conducted this survey, the first being in November 2012.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 12th of March 2012 1,033 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.5% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 17.9% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, and 27.9% aged fifty or older.

Here’s a scam virus advert on a tablet:

I seem to remember translating the previous survey, but I cannot find it on the site. Perhaps I got half-way through and decided it wasn’t interesting enough to be published?

Anyway, I’m curious why tablet security is increasing but smartphone staying static. One factor in the tablet rise is no doubt due to Android increasing market share, and curiously enough if all the extra 36 tablet owners in Q1SQ were non-iOS users, and all of them used security software, then the rise from 42.1% to 55.2% is explained, but I’m sure that’s just a numerical fluke.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on an interesting survey from Trend Micro into Android smartphone usage. Actually, no survey title was given in the article, but that is probably close enough to the theme.

Demographics

Towards the end of 2012 316 people between the ages of 18 and 59 who had changed from a feature phone to Android in 2012 completed a web-based questionnaire, although it is not clear how they were selected or if the survey was private or not.

Note that Galapagos in the title comes from a frequently-used term for Japanese feature phone which have evolved in isolation to devices uniquely suited for their environment, but unable to establish a foothold anywhere else in the world.
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goo Research recently carried out asurvey into the interesting topic of smartphone privacy, although japan.internet.com only reported on the security lock results.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 9th of October 2012 1,080 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 15.6% in their teens, 17.8% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 16.3% in their fifties, and 12.8% aged sixty or older.

I don’t use any lock on my smartphone, myself. I’d like to see some sort of voice-based password that combined both voice and phrase recognition.
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A recent Cabinet Office Japan survey into public order, much to my surprise found that the populace no longer pinned the blame for Japan’s ills on foreigners, even when compared to the same survey three and six years ago.

Demographics

Between the 5th and 15th of July 2012 3,000 randomly-selected Japanese citizens were selected from resident rolls and approached for face-to-face interviews. 1,956 people agreed to take part, but a further demographic breakdown was not provided.

I’m not really sure why the figures for fear of foreigners have changes so dramatically for the better in the last six years, and I’m not sure how I would go about finding out the reason behind it. However, it does also seem clear that the new bogeyman is Reefer Madness, especially as round about the time of the survey there was no end of stories about a current social problem of legal highs, dubious cannabinoid derivatives sold as incence in a multitude of shops in Japan’s big cities.
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A recent survey from goo Research into mobile phone location services, ie, these functions like foursquare, Google Latitude, and Facebook location was reported on (and sponsored by?) by AdverTimes.

Demographics

Sadly, to find out the full demographics I suspect one has to buy their paper magazine Senden Kaigi, which in their 15th May 2012 edition featured an article entitled “Consumer Psychology in the SNS-facilitated mutual surveillance society”, of which this report is a digest. In Q1, the 2008 survey was carried out in December of that year with 2,077 respondents, and this year’s survey was in April with 2,214 respondents, all from the usual goo Research online monitor panel.

I’m reluctant to check in when out and about in town – I’ve only attached location information to photos when I’ve been passing through commuting home; there was an interesting article a while ago about someone in Tokyo who used that sort of public information plus Twitter to find two people in real time through their mobile presence.

I wonder what the reasons are for smartphone users being more likely to reveal information – is it that smartphone apps make it easy and fun to do, or is it that the people who want to reveal information tend to use smartphones? Perhaps if one buys the magazine one can find out!
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Here’s another very interesting smartphone survey, this time looking at smartphones and privacy awareness, and conducted by goo Research.

Demographics

Over the 30th and 31st of May 2011 1,573 smartphone owning members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.4% of the sample had an iPhone, 47.6% an Android-based phone; 1.0% had had their smartphone for less than a month, 12.5% between one and three months, 28.3% between three and six months, 25.3% six months to a year, 22.8% for one or two years, and 10.1% more than two years. 71.9% of the sample were male, 16.7% in their twenties, 34.6% in their thirties, 29.9% in their forties, 14.9% in their fifties, and 3.9% aged sixty or older.

I’m really surprised about the very low disclosure rate of who one works for, but it does very much ring true with what people who were sceptical of whether LinkedIn could make it in Japan said.
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A recently-reported, but not recently-conducted survey conducted by DIMSDRIVE Research looked at computer security.

Demographics

Between the 16th of September and the 7th of November 2010 7,937 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group with a home computer completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.1% of the sample were male, 0.7% in their teens, 11.2% in their twenties, 31.9% in their thirties, 33.1% in their forties, 15.4% in their fifties, and 7.7% aged sixty or older.

My main security software is Microsoft Security Essentials, which does the business. On my desktop PC running Vista, the daily updates then scans really bog the machine down for 30 minutes, despite setting it to only use 30% or less of the system resources. I used to run Avast!, again free, but it prompts once a year for a free license update, but last year I just couldn’t get the message to go away. It’s quite sad that most people get stuck with commercial packages that they don’t really rate very highly just because it comes bundled on the computer.
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With viruses – well, more often Trojans – spreading to smartphones, in particular to Android devices, this recent survey from goo Research looked at smartphone security, with japan.internet.com reporting in particular on anti-virus software installation.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 15th of July 2011 1,082 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample were male, 16.5% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.5% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 15.1% in their forties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

Android security is a very interesting subject; given the security model, I think even for an experienced user a security solution is necessary. Anti-virus is the default choice for people coming from the PC world, but on the limited resources of a mobile phone there has to be a better way! Some of the more interesting solutions are those offered by Mocana, the secure firmware implementation called WishperCore, TOMOYO Linux, and Kirin and TraintDroid, to name but a few.
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Since the Fukushima Dai-ichi meltdown, one of the problems occuring has been the worries about radioactive particles in the tap water (I’d argue that the worries exceed the actual danger), so it was interesting to see this survey from iShare into drinking water for infants.

Demographics

On the 13th of June 2011 576 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 63.9% of the sample were female, 11.8% in their twenties, 80.6% in their thirties, and 7.6% in their forties. All of the sample lived in Tokyo prefecture and had bought mineral water for infants.

The one or two times I’ve been in Tokyo, however, I don’t think I’ve actually drunk the water, so I cannot say how nice or otherwise it is.

In Q7SQ, I never knew there was a recommended water for formula milk! Soft water is apparently the correct answer, and most of the water in Japan is soft. Q10 and Q10SQ shows just over three in four women with infants worry about Fukushima fallout in their water – do is that a larger or smaller percentage than you would imagine?

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