世論 What Japan Thinks

This short but rather sweet survey from blogch and iShare into ranking of what is considered personal information made me think, and I hope it does the same for you.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 14th of May 2008 636 members of blogch completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.9% of the sample was male, 14.5% in their twenties, 46.7% in their thirties, 27.4% in their forties, and 11.5% in their teens or over fifty.

I don’t know why home email address was not included in the survey, nor why people help their age more private than their date of birth!

For me, there is no way I would part with my cell phone number and email address, and for passport number, I’d query the need for people to ask for it rather than be concerned about the privacy issue.

All junk mail, as well as all other envelopes with addresses on them, go through the shredder before disposal, although I always suspect that the reason is more to stop the rubbish police tracking us down for chucking stuff out on the wrong day!

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With the new taspo (short for tobacco passport) system gradually being introduced across Japan, this recent survey from DIMSDRIVE Research Inc into taspo sheds some light on what may be in store.

Demographics

Between the 2nd and 10th of April 2008 6,727 members of the DIMSDRIVE monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 61.1% of the sample was female, 1.2% in their teens, 17.2% in their twenties, 35.9% in their thirties, 27.3% in their forties, 13.2% in their fifties, and 5.2% aged sixty or older. 59 people, or 0.9%, lived in the two trial prefectures where the taspo system has gone live, namely Miyazaki and Kagoshima.

The taspo card has two functions; one is as a proof of age card, the other is electronic cash. However, the electronic cash system is completely incompatible with all other systems, and none of the questions in this survey asked about this feature.

In Q6 you can see most people think there will be little or no effect on under-age smoking due to the introduction of the card. There’s a million and one other cheaper ways that smoking could be reduced in Japan, with forcing Japan Tobacco out of self-denial being high up on the list. As a quick translation, they say (a) that smoking is just one factor combined with environment, stress, eating habits, genetics, exercise, etc and (b) cancer only develops in mice when you attach the equivalent of thousands or tens of thousands of ciggies-worth of tar to their skin. Go to any of the privately-owned brewers’ web sites and there’s a message on the front page about under-age drinking and not drinking when pregnant or nursing. On the other hand, see if you can find the health (dis)information on JT’s Smokers Style site, without cheating and using the site map link.
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With the ubiquity of computers and cell phones, penmanship skills become less and less used. To see how this affects the average Japanese, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into handwriting and character input. This is a survey I’d love to see in full!

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of April 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor pool completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.8% of the sample was female, 3.6% in their teens, 16.7% in their twenties, 36.1% in their thirties, 28.5% in their forties, 8.8% in their fifties, 5.8% in their sixties, and 0.6% aged seventy or older.

I translated a similar survey on literacy back in June of 2006. This time almost 60% had over 10 years of computer usage, and in total almost 90% had over five years experience, so this sample mostly contained mature users.

I use the computer on the whole to prepare documents, but when being creative, in particular when forming ideas, I use paper to sketch out, as the limitations of a keyboard stunt my inventive processes. Meeting minutes and notes are also always done on paper as I can simultaneously write and listen better than I can type and listen. Also, if I can’t be bothered switching on my computer in the train I’ll just use paper there.
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This week goo Ranking decided to report on what in vogue items or fashions from the 1980s do people get nostalgic about when they look back on them.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of February 2008 1,052 people from the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.7% were female, 6.4% in their teens, 15.7% in their twenties, 31.0% in their thirties, 26.6% in their forties, 11.2% in their fifties, and 9.1% aged sixty or over. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample.

This is a difficult one for me to answer, as I was never really into the fads myself during that time. Music brings back certain memories, so thinking about that it’s probably the silly hair from people like Kajagoogoo, Duran Duran, Adam Ant or the sharp suits of Tony Hadley of Spandau Ballet and the rest of the New Romantic boom that would spark not a longing for the actual music or styles, but just to be there again and do things differently or just do the same things all over again.

All photos have been appropriated from random websites via Google Image Search…
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This rather epic survey from the Cabinet Office Japan will be split into multiple parts and posted over the next few days. Here they looked at awareness of society, covering four main areas of country and society, the state of society today, evaluation of government, and how society works. A translation of a similar survey from last year may be found here and two years ago is here.

Demographics

10,000 people aged 20 or older were randomly selected from the entire Japanese population to take part in the survey. From that group, 5,494 people agreed to take part in face-to-face interviews conducted between the 7th and 24th of February 2008. 53.8% of the sample was female, 8.1% in their twenties, 15.3% in their thirties, 15.8% in their forties, 21.3% in their fifties, 21.9% in their sixties, 16.5% in their seventies, and 3.1% aged eighty or older. 74.7% were married, 11.8% were divorced or widowed, and 13.5% were unmarried.

The depression continues in this section, with Q13 dissatisfaction with the government’s KY-ness (空気が読めない, Kuuki ga Yomenai, inability to sense the mood), and Q14 showing pretty much all aspects of life not looking good and Q15 highlighting the ones particularly decaying. However, at least the final section on children was bright in outlook.
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This rather epic survey from the Cabinet Office Japan will be split into multiple parts and posted over the next few days. Here they looked at awareness of society, covering four main areas of country and society, the state of society today, evaluation of government, and how society works. A translation of a similar survey from last year may be found here and two years ago is here.

Demographics

10,000 people aged 20 or older were randomly selected from the entire Japanese population to take part in the survey. From that group, 5,494 people agreed to take part in face-to-face interviews conducted between the 7th and 24th of February 2008. 53.8% of the sample was female, 8.1% in their twenties, 15.3% in their thirties, 15.8% in their forties, 21.3% in their fifties, 21.9% in their sixties, 16.5% in their seventies, and 3.1% aged eighty or older. 74.7% were married, 11.8% were divorced or widowed, and 13.5% were unmarried.

Q6 and Q7 are a pretty depressing pair of statistics, with only peace showing any degree of optimism, but social breakdown bearing down on many people. Also, Q8 shows that people are more proud of the past rather than the present Japan.
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This rather epic survey from the Cabinet Office Japan will be split into multiple parts and posted over the next few days. Here they looked at awareness of society, covering four main areas of country and society, the state of society today, evaluation of government, and how society works. A translation of a similar survey from last year may be found here and two years ago is here.

Demographics

10,000 people aged 20 or older were randomly selected from the entire Japanese population to take part in the survey. From that group, 5,494 people agreed to take part in face-to-face interviews conducted between the 7th and 24th of February 2008. 53.8% of the sample was female, 8.1% in their twenties, 15.3% in their thirties, 15.8% in their forties, 21.3% in their fifties, 21.9% in their sixties, 16.5% in their seventies, and 3.1% aged eighty or older. 74.7% were married, 11.8% were divorced or widowed, and 13.5% were unmarried.

The results for love of one’s country (not patriotism, which is a different word in both English and Japanese) in Q1 and Q2 were interesting, but Q3 was surprising that so large a minority thought that looking out for themselves was more important. I’d have liked to have seen a follow-up question to investigate why people chose each of their answers.

Q4SQ is perhaps misleading to the casual reader; over 40% take part in environmental activities, but as most large cities require separation of different kinds of rubbish, the surprise to me is more that the figure is so low.
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This week’s silliness is from goo Ranking as usual, this time looking at what unique appreciation societies people might like to join.

Demographics

Over the 21st and 22nd of February 2008 1,052 people from the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.7% were female, 6.4% in their teens, 15.7% in their twenties, 31.0% in their thirties, 26.6% in their forties, 11.2% in their fifties, and 9.1% aged sixty or over. 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’m not sure what the exact selection criteria for these societies were; was it a hand-picked list and people chose the most interesting to them, or was it a free answer?

Number 1 is a great choice, and a good excuse to link to Neil Duckett’s pottering about around the Yamanote Line in Tokyo, as I’ve done that a few times myself around areas I thought I was familiar with, but it’s quite fascinating to just wander about taking in the atmosphere. I don’t know if I’d like the actual pottering as a group activity, but having somewhere to swap photos and chat about one’s discoveries would be fun.

I’d probably also want to join a Gaijins Who Don’t Like Hanging Out With Other Gaijins Appreciation Society. No wait…
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A recent survey from goo Research, conducted in conjuction with the All About Japan web site, looked at awareness of crime prevention in those living alone.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 23rd of January 2008 1,017 members of the goo Research online monitor panel aged between 20 and 34, single and living alone, and regular full-time employees completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.2% of the sample was female, 28.0% was aged between 20 and 24, 39.4% between 25 and 29, and 32.6% between 30 and 34.

I’m very suprised by the results of Q6 as shown in the pie chart above. Barely one in twenty are on speaking terms with the neighbours, which is much lower than I might have expected. I’d love to hear the reasons why.

Just to explain the anti thumb-turn covers, these try to prevent one kind of housebreaking attack where someone sticks a wire through your letterbox and turns the lock from the inside.
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This headline will no doubt have most of my readers groaning, but more of that a couple of paragraphs further down. This was one of the curious results from a recent survey conducted by Japan Research Council into concerns about environmental problems.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 19th of November 2007 (before the aforementioned Japan Tobacco had a number of their China-made frozen gyoza laced with poison, a case that is still unresolved) 1,200 people were randomly selected from resident databases in 200 representative areas. From each of the locations 6 willing survey respondents were chosen for face-to-face interviews. 50.4% of the sample were female, 6.2% were in their teens, 15.2% in their twenties, 17.9% in their thirties, 15.2% in their forties, 18.5% in their fifties, 15.9% in their sixties, and 11.1% in their seventies.

Although Toyota do produce a lot of fuel-efficient cars, with the Prius the star amongst them, and are not slow to blow their own trumpet on the topic, other cars in their range are not so great fuel-wise, and indeed as I mentioned before, their new Noah and Voxy have 10% worse fuel consumption than the old models! As for Japan Tobacco, this survey highlights how clever, evily clever, their advertising team are. Smoking outside has been changed from a health issue to litter and safety issues, with the dangers being poking children in the eyes with lighted ciggies or dropping butt ends rather than dying horribly from cancer or living out your twilight years dragging an oxygen bottle behind you. Also note that Japan Tobacco outranks Sharp, the world’s largest producer of solar panels.

This survey can be cross-referenced with another recent one on Warm Biz from the same company.
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