世論 What Japan Thinks

Watch any breakfast show on Japanese TV and you’ll often see lengthy segments where various celebrities from the A-List to the Z-List talk about their love life. This recent survey from iShare looked at this topic of celebrities pairing off and breaking up.

Demographics

Between the 28th of January and the 2nd of February 2010 511 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.0% of the sample were male, 33.1% in their twenties, 34.1% in their thirties, and 32.9% in their forties.

I must say I do find all the news rather tedious. Mind you, I certainly cannot curse at Japan as Google News UK’s Entertainment segment has been full of the worst sort of break-up news about people I know even less about than the average Japanese personality.
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Recently DIMSDRIVE Research took a look at shredders and personal information.

Demographics

Between the 22nd of July and the 6th of August 2009 9,590 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.1% of the sample were male, 1.1% in their teens, 11.9% in their twenties, 32.2% in their thirties, 31.5% in their forties, 16.5% in their fifties, and 6.8% aged sixty or older.

In Q1, just in case you are wondering what a personal information-hiding stamp is, well, I can sell you one of these. It’s a stamp that overprints data with a tight pattern in order to obscure the original text which I thought was just a novelty, but 6.4% of the sample use one.

I myself have an electric shredder that we bought mail-order for about 10,000 yen a few years ago. It’s a quite large home office size, but it works well, although it does clog up if you put plastic wrappers through…
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Juki Net is a national scheme that is basically a voluntary ID card used mostly to simplify access to local government services, so a new service introduced this month is machines at convenience stores that can issue official residence certificates, seal registration forms, etc, so this was the topic of a recent survey from iShare.

Demographics

Between the 22nd of December 2009 and 4th of January 2010 561 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.4% of the sample were male, 32.6% in their twenties, 32.3% in their thirties, and 35.1% in their forties.

Here’s a very interesting background article on what exactly Juki Net is and what concerns people have regarding it.
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Recently, the Cabinet Office Japan took a detailed look at culture.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 15th of November 2009 3,000 people over the aged of twenty selected at random from resident lists all over the country were approached for interview. 1,853 people, or 61.8% were available and agreed to take part in face-to-face interviews. 52.6% of the sample were female, 8.7% in their twenties, 14.8% in their thirties, 17.6% in their forties, 16.6% in their fifties, 24.0% in their sixties, and 18.2% aged seventy or older.

Q14 is interesting in that traditional arts are what people think are most praised (not praiseworthy) worldwide. If traditional arts included bushido and ninjas, perhaps, but for the ones listed I hear they are worth seeing just once. Manga and anime are the most influential, I think, although perhaps not praised outside of a narrow demographic, and it is my personal mission to try to persuade as many of you that Takarazuka theatre should be experienced and hailed worldwide as a unique experience.
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[part 1][part 2]

Recently, the Cabinet Office Japan took a detailed look at culture.

Demographics

Between the 11th and 15th of November 2009 3,000 people over the aged of twenty selected at random from resident lists all over the country were approached for interview. 1,853 people, or 61.8% were available and agreed to take part in face-to-face interviews. 52.6% of the sample were female, 8.7% in their twenties, 14.8% in their thirties, 17.6% in their forties, 16.6% in their fifties, 24.0% in their sixties, and 18.2% aged seventy or older.

My two main cultural experiences are movies and theatre, especially musicals. I really should write reviews of what I see and get them published somewhere! I’ve been to one art gallery in the last year, which was in a rebuilt castle and filled with slightly creepy Christian art…
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iShare recently published a curious set of results from a survey they conducted into nameplates outside Japanese homes.

Demographics

Between the 17th and 22nd of December 2009 531 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.2% of the sample were male, 33.3% in their twenties, 34.3% in their thirties, and 32.4% in their forties.

One interesting fact I recently learnt about Google Street View Japan is that in responce to claims about privacy infringement, as well as blurring out faces and car registration plates as they do elsewhere, they also blanked out nameplates for Japan only.
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With more and more web sites supporting the use of icons to represent users (including this site and the Gravaters) in the comments, there is perhaps more opportunities to display an avatar, the subject of this survey from iShare.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 25th of December 2009 505 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.2% of the sample were male, 38.8% in their twenties, 27.9% in their thirties, and 33.3% in their forties.

I’d have liked to have seen a question on whether people prefer to use an avatar that looks like them or just an actual photo. Looking at my Google Friend Connect (see the bottom of the right sidebar) set of icons, I see the vast majority are actual photos and there might be just one that is a look-alike image (), but since Japanese on the whole feel resistance to revealing names, one cannot make assumptions about Japanese avatar usage based on my primarily western set.

I’ve seen adverts somewhere for generating an avatar based on a photograph you send them, but I’ve not looked into the price.
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Computers and cell phones are making most of the respondents to this survey from iShare ill, with stiff shoulders and dry eye being the two most common symptoms of technostress.

Demographics

Between the 8th and 11th of December 2009 491 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 55.6% of the sample were male, 35.6% in their twenties, 27.5% in their thirties, and 36.9% in their forties.

I hardly ever get any particular complaint from using PCs or mobiles, except for tired eyes that go away after just a quick break.

Stiff shoulders (katakori) are, as far as I can determine, a typically Japanese response to stress where in the west it would probably be a headache or migraine. Dry eye, however, is I suspect (in my totally and utterly non-medical opinion) a reaction to overuse of eye drops. Attend any event from the cinema to the theatre and you’ll see lots of people topping up (replacing) their tears with various over-the-counter medicine. The big manufacturers even sell a junior eyedrop for children, but if your kid isn’t producing tears you should be seeing a doctor, not self-medicating!
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Note: Tofugu wrote a nice article on this survey.

Correctly-addressing even close friends in Japanese is a matter of some complexity that I won’t attempt to explain here. However, iShare recently tackled the subject of names partners use with each other as you can see here.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 26th of November 2009 484 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.7% were male, 33.3% in their twenties, 32.2% in their thirties, and 34.5% in their forties.

One that I was suprised and disappointed didn’t have a category of its own was calling your wife “mother”. Many Japanese seem to adopt this as soon as they have a kid, so I’d have liked to have had concrete data on this.

The most popular kinds of mildly-embarrassing nicknames were adding “-tan” or “-nyan” after names.

We don’t bother with suffixes or nicknames in this house, and adding “-chan” after names usually indicates a request for something is coming soon…
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Macromill published their annual survey on new adults, looking at how the latest batch of twenty year olds look at themselves and their future

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of December 2009 516 members of the Macromill monitor group who have recently or will soon be turning twenty thus eligible to attend a Coming of Age ceremony this weekend completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female.

The stereotypes of the herbivore boy and the carnivore girl make an appearance towards the end of this survey! In Q11, considering that most of the respondents are probably university students, under 20% being active in the pursuit of the opposite sex, especially given the commonly-held view that Japanese universities are not exactly the most taxing of institutions study-wise, does seem a rather low figure to me!
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