世論 What Japan Thinks

One popular ranking survey from lat year was how to spot an otaku and otakette, so I wonder if this recent survey from goo Ranking into what image people have of a herbivore boy (both men and women) and a carnivore boy (both men and women).

Demographics

Between the 20th and 22nd of August 2009 1,077 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 51.1% of the sample were male, 8.4% in their teens, 14.2% in their twenties, 26.7% in their thirties, 28.2% in their forties, 11.1% in their fifties, and 11.2% 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.

Herbivore boys have been the subject of news features such as this one from Reuters after a marketing firm identified (the more cynical might say “invented”) the trend. I’m definitely in the herbivore category, and not just because I’m a vegetarian, although I’m sure there’s some correlation there.
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Here are some interesting figures from Point On Research, reported on by japan.internet.com, into the matter of the degree of dependence on mobile phones

Demographics

On the 13th of October 2009 800 mobile phone users completed a mobile phone-internet based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 25.0% in their teens, 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, and 25.0% in their forties.

One thing that’s not clear from the using it in the toilet bit is if it is one’s home toilet, a public toilet, or a toilet at work, as hiding in the toilets at the office to send furtive email is quite popular at my place of work, for instance.
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Rather than just another survey on consumer interests, here’s something a bit different, a look at recent trends in smoking and drinking rates amongst Japanese schoolchildren. The multiple surveys were conducted and analysed by Central Research Services.

Demographics

I only have concrete demographics for the 1996 and 2000 surveys; both surveys asked students at about 70 to 90 junior and senior high schools, getting over 100,000 replies both times, representing over 60% of the students enrolled in each institution.

The remarkable drop in smoking and drinking rates is quite surprising, and I must admit to being a bit skeptical about the results on first reading. However, the survey report referenced a paper entitled Decrease in the prevalence of smoking among Japanese adolescents and its possible causes: periodic nationwide cross-sectional surveys (English) that tried to explain the huge drop. Their conculsion is as stunning as the statistics themselves – more schoolchildren have no friends, thus no peer pressure to indulge in such underage vices.

Photo from Don’t fry leeks,please on flickr.
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I’m sure I’m not the only one who gets email newsletters from various places that I just can’t unsubscribe from, and in Japan there seems to be no law or industry best practice to have a simple unsubscribe link even from reputable businesses, so this recent survey from iShare into unwanted email newsletters revealed how the average person copes with this situation.

Demographics

Between the 18th and 28th of September 2009 513 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.8% of the sample were male, 30.4% in their twenties, 33.3% in their thirties, and 36.3% in their forties.

My wife gets a shed-load of spam every day, especially from Rakuten (Japan’s largest online mall), who will sell on your address to their shops at the drop of a hat, so even if you unclick all the mail delivery boxes, you come back a day or two later and find that new boxes have appeared. I suspect in the small print when you buy something from one of their shops is some text saying that you agree to get email from other businesses from the same genre. She has mostly given up on unsubscribing, so she now has hundreds of addresses blocked in her mail client!
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With GPS becoming standard in most of the higher-end mobile phones these days, this recent survey from goo Research and reported on by japan.internet.com looked at GPS devices in general.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 29th of September 2009 1,023 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.2% in their forties, 15.6% in their fifties, and 12.2% aged sixty or older.

I don’t have GPS on my rather old and low-end phone, but I cannot really say I desperately want any of the features listed in Q2SQ. A walking history might be nice, as a few phones these days also have pedometers, so recording not just your paces but also your speed and distance walked might be useful for tracking one’s exercise patterns. Location-based search in itself is not compelling, but add in functionality such as only showing your favourite genres of restaurants, highly-rated locations, or places with discount coupons and then it becomes more useful, although whether or not I’d use it is debatable!
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Call me old-fashioned or square, but I am glad that in Japan even minor body modifications such as simple ear studs are not that popular, as this recent survey from iShare into piercing confirms.

Demographics

Between the 7th and 10th of September 2009 516 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.2% of the sample were male, 33.9% in their twenties, 30.0% in their thirties, and 36.0% in their forties.

I’d like to know if the difference in Q2 of 24% to 8% is due to gender-based rules or due to the men and women in this survey working in different industries. Looking at my own employer’s rules, I cannot find a direct ban on piercings, but there are notes about gaudy earrings (and loud hair, etc) which suggest that anything more than a simple stud for guys would earn one a visit to the personel department.

I do occasionally see people with lip rings (yuk!), but I usually suspect they are just fake clip-ons, not real.
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To the left you can see the Japanese National Anthem, Kimi Ga Yo, as you’ve never seen it before, and probably never want to see it again! I decided to translate in into emoji, using two English translations as the base.

Version 1 is:

May your reign
Continue for a thousand, eight thousand generations,
Until the pebbles
Grow into boulders
Lush with moss

Version 2 is:

May the reign of the Emperor
continue for a thousand, nay, eight thousand generations
and for the eternity that it takes
for small pebbles to grow into a great rock
and become covered with moss.

Note that I cheated slightly by using one standard character, and I used the docomo emoji set, displayed in Gmail. The boulders are a bit naff, and due to the lack of a chrysanthemum I chose Japan’s other national flower, a sakura (cherry) petal.

Why, you may ask. Well, because of the project below that I am in my own small way helping to fund, the translation of Moby Dick into iPhone emoji:

Hurry, there’s only a few days left and still a lot of money to raise to get this project going! Oh, and just in case I get any Japanese people looking for this, 絵文字君が代.

Today is Health and Fitness Day in Japan, but as I don’t have any interesting sports-related surveys to hand, instead I’ll present a look by goo Research, in conjunction with President magazine, at married couples’ lifestyles.

Demographics

At some undefined point in time 3,208 married members of the goo Research monitor group aged between 40 and 69 completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample consisted of 1,602 husbands and 1,606 wives.

My wife does various internet-based questionnaires herself, and recently she showed me one user-generated poll asking a question to the effect of “What would you think if your spouse came up behind you and gave you a hug?” The most popular answers includes yelling, starting an argument, worrying that some bad news was coming, etc. Being happy about your spouse’s expression of love came very low down the list!
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Only time for a quicky today from goo Ranking, this time looking at what one looks back on with an embarrassed laugh.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 22nd of August 2009 1,077 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 51.1% of the sample were male, 8.4% in their teens, 14.2% in their twenties, 26.7% in their thirties, 28.2% in their forties, 11.1% in their fifties, and 11.2% 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.

Number one seems a bit of a contradiction, as being completely and utterly out of it by definition means that one cannot recall the incident! If I think about it, I can recall a number of incidents that would fit the bill for this survey, but as they’re embarrassing, I’m not telling you what they are!
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Recently there has been a lot of moral panic (some justified, some unjustified) about schoolkids and their mobile phone usage in Japan, with a number of schools introducing various bans on usage. To find out what kids are up to these days, MacroMill Inc looked at high school students and mobile phones.

Demographics

Between the 15th and 17th of September 2009 300 high school students (therefore aged between 15 and 18) completed a private mobile phone-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female. Note that the sample will be over-represented by heavier mobile phone users, so perhaps the figures here for usage of mobile phones in class, for instance, are higher than they are in reality, or at least I hope that is the case.

As I know there are a few people who teach in Japanese schools amongst my readership, I’d love to hear from you on how the results of this survey fit with your experiences at the chalkface.

I find it quite amazing that more students use their phones in the bath than in class! However, the fact that almost one in six admit to using them regularly in class is a pretty depressing statistic.
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