Following up, in a way, on Saturday’s look at the taspo card, let’s look at smoking in Japan, according to a survey conducted by Central Research Services, Inc.
Demographics
2,000 people aged twenty or over were randomly selected to take part in this survey. 1,328 people of those selected took part in face-to-face interviews between the 6th and 9th of June 2008. Further demographic information was not provided. This was the 22nd time the survey has been conducted; the previous ones were in 1978, 1983, and every year since 1987.
Notice in Q1 there has been a slight rise in smoking rates. Unfortunately no historical information is provided for the demographic breakdown, so it’s difficult to see where the rise is coming from – is it more new smokers, or less people quitting? Is the problem under-age smokers getting addicted, or adults choosing to start?
Q4, giving the numbers bothered by smoking, is a bit difficult to interpret, as both smokers and non-smokers answered. Read the rest of this entry »
Universal design, a term coined by Ron Mace, a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, has been embraced by many Japanese companies. To see how awareness of it is spreading throughout Japan, this survey from MyVoice investigated what people thought of Universal Design, or UD as it is often abbreviated to.
Demographics
Over the first five days of August 2008 15,045 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a members-only online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 37% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 18% in their fifties.
In Q4, the lack of awareness of UD when selecting products is not necessarily a bad thing, as good UD should ideally be invisible. On many Panasonic products, for instance, the on button is a large yellow one with a black legend, a colour scheme which has been shown to be the most visible to people with cataracts or other vision problems, and the largeness makes it easier to find and push. Without knowledge of UD, the average able-bodied user perhaps just thinks it’s clearly marked, without considering the accessibility issues. Read the rest of this entry »
The figure in the headline is a surprisingly high one, coming from this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Marsh Inc into measures to prevent leaks of information.
Demographics
Over the 28th and 29th of August 2008 300 people from the Marsh monitor panel with home computers completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were female, and 20.0% in each age group from the twenties to the over-sixties.
The difference in Q1 between online shopping and online checkout is that many services offer not just online payment, but also offline payment at convenience store kiosks, and even cash on delivery to said convenience stores.
For Q2SQ, my wife had that, filling in a dodgy survey from a site linked from a popular trustworthy site, and she gets about 10 spam per day from them. Read the rest of this entry »
In yesterday’s post I pondered out loud about whether or not the line I commute on is the busiest one in the Osaka area or not, so I decided to look for some statistics. With surprisingly little effort, I found the data for last year, 2007, for Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya areas.
The degree of crowding was averaged over one hour over all the trains passing through the segment between two stations, and I presume also averaged over the year. As a baseline, 100% is full, not just all seats taken, but also the straps and a few people around the doors. 150% is touching shoulders, but can still easily read a newspaper. 180% is bodies touching, but can just manage to read. 200% is just a bit too close, but you can still just manage a magazine or book. 250% is sardines.
A rather spicy title for a rather bland survey, I’m afraid! I could only find something borderline silly for today, a survey by goo Ranking into what people didn’t do before they were fully-fledged members of society. In Japan this normally means once someone finishes full-time education and with an additional implication of entering full-time employment.
Demographics
Between the 25th and 28th of July 2008 1,072 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.3% of the sample were male, 5.7% in their teens, 14.4% in their twenties, 31,0% in their thirties, 28.1% in their forties, 10.5% in their fifties, and 10.4% 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 only managed about six myself before I started working, with going abroad being one notable one I didn’t do until I was twenty-four, with a business trip to New Orleans being my first overseas experience.
5=, using a taxi ticket, is for people working past the last train home, allowing them to charge the fare to the company. 12, the formal receipt, is for claiming back expenses. Don’t be too surprised at number 8, as there are a lot of older people in the survey who finished school before computers became widespread there. Read the rest of this entry »
The 15th of August this year marked the 63rd anniversary of the surrender of Japan. To find out what young people think of war, goo Research, in conjunction with the Yomiuri newspaper performed a survey on this topic.
Demographics
Between the 23rd and 25th of July 2008 534 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed an internet-based questionnaire. The sample was mixed male and female, and ages between teens and those in their thirties. More detailed information is not given
Note that this report is just an excerpt of the full survey, thus some of the results raise more questions than they answer. Why do the majority of young Japanese not see peace lasting? Do they fear external sources like North Korea and China, or internal sources like terrorism – homegrown or imported – or a renouncement of Article Nine, the part of the constitution that forbids Japan from having an offensive army? Read the rest of this entry »
With another recent survey on earthquake preparedness (untranslated by me) showing over two in three rather worried about The Big One hitting, this survey on earthquake early warnings presents a look at a different aspect of the same topic. The survey was conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc and published on the japan.internet.com web site.
Demographics
On the 18th of August 2008 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 84.3% of the sample were male (it said the survey was conducted with just internet users, but that’s an even heavier bias towards men than even their panels of employed people!), 4.8% in their twenties, 35.3% in their thirties, 44.7% in their forties, 12.4% in their fifties, 2.1% in their sixties, and 0.6% aged seventy or older.
The early warning system is not predictions of earthquakes, but instead sensors all over the country can detect an earthquake nearby, and since radio messages travel faster than the earthquake P and S waves, they basically radio ahead to warn that something nasty is coming, usually giving no more than 10 seconds warning, just enough time to dive under a handy table. As The Big One for Tokyo is predicted to likely occur under the city, it does seem rather pointless for the residents of that city. Read the rest of this entry »
This survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com regarding computer recycling is a particularly relevant survey to me, as I am right now in the middle of copying files from an old PC to a new one via my notebook.
Demographics
On the 7th of August 2008 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.1% of the sample were male, 14.2% in their twenties, 41.4% in their thirties, 23.0% in their forties, 12.1% in their fifties, and 9.4% in their sixties.
There has to be a better way to copy around 80GB of data from one computer to the other! I’m just using a network share and the rather nice utility TeraCopy that fixes a few bugs and annoyances in the standard Windows file copying routines. One other problem I have is that I only have one monitor and only one handy network connection so I cannot directly copy from old to new. Hopefully I’ll be up and running by tomorrow.
Regarding disposal of computers, the 資源有効利用促進法, shigenyuukouriyousokushinhou, or Law for Promotion of Effective Utilization of Resources, to give it its official English translation according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry web site, requires businesses to promote recycling of computers (and air conditioners, microwaves, televisions, washing and drying machines, fridges, and copiers). Read the rest of this entry »
Between the 3rd and 5th of July 2008 1,039 married women from the goo Research online monitor panel successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 100% of the sample was female, of course, 33.3% in their twenties, 32.6% in their thirties, and 34.1% in their forties. 38.4% were full-time employees, 11.4% contract or dispatch staff, and 50.2% were full-time housewives. I don’t know why no part-timers or students were in the sample.
A recent story from the New York Times misrepresented the situation regarding energy consumption of heated toilets, but thinking about the situation more and seeing a couple of much more efficient European products, I realised the biggest domestic energy saving that can be made with little alteration to the average Japanese person’s lifestyle is to replace the hot water pot with some of the newer types of kettle.
I was going to post something describing the relative power consumptions, but it’s really difficult to get figures for kettles in sensible units – all I got was stuff like “If everyone boiled only the water they needed to make a cup of tea instead of filling the kettle every time, we could save enough electricity in a year to power the UK’s street lights for nearly 7 months. This is the equivalent of the electricity used by 300,000 households for a year or output of a typical power station for nearly 5 months.” If these figures weren’t incomprehensible enough, it said the above would save “enough CO2 to fill Big Ben tower more than 50,000 times.”
For Japan, between the 7th and 19th of November 2007 1,200 people were selected at random, weighted by region, from a database of households, and were interviewed both face to face and had questionnaires left to fill in. 50.4% of the sample were female, and the ages were distributed between 15 and 79 years old. For South Korea, between the 12th and 26th of June 2008 1,510 people were selected at random, weighted by region, sex and age, and were interviewed face to face. 50.6% of the sample were female, and the ages of those sampled were 19 or older.
I wish I knew more about South Korea to know how best to interpret the results. For instance, in Q2 only 5% of Koreans recycling their bathwater for use by their washing machines, but is this due to showering being more popular in Korea? Similarly, in Q1SQ Koreans are much more aware of fresh water pollution. Why? Read the rest of this entry »
Following up, in a way, on Saturday’s look at the taspo card, let’s look at smoking in Japan, according to a survey conducted by Central Research Services, Inc.
Universal design, a term coined by Ron Mace, a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, has been embraced by many Japanese companies. To see how awareness of it is spreading throughout Japan, this survey from MyVoice investigated what people thought of 
The figure in the headline is a surprisingly high one, coming from this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Marsh Inc into 
The 15th of August this year marked the 63rd anniversary of the surrender of Japan. To find out what young people think of 
With another recent survey on earthquake preparedness (untranslated by me) showing over two in three rather worried about The Big One hitting, this survey on 
This survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com regarding 
Recently, goo Research, in conjuction with All About, looked at 
This interesting recent report from Nippon Research Council, conducted in conjunction with Gallop Korea, looked into the 
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