世論 What Japan Thinks

Recently japan.internet.com published the results of a survey conducted by RealWorld RealResearch into Q&A site usage, a field which has seen two moderate-sized players, one of them being Microsoft, shut down their services this year.

Demographics

Over the 1st and 2nd of September 2009 1,013 members of the RealWorld RealResearch monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 61.2% of the sample were male, 8.1% in their teens, 8.6% in their twenties, 11.1% in their thirties, 41.1% in their forties, 19.1% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

I’ve used an English-language Q&A site, and although I did find that the majority of answers were reasonably correct, with the public voting it was a bit too easy for wrong but playing to the crowd answers to do better than an unpopular but more correct opinion. I’ve since stopped visiting after realising how much time I was wasting, as they are quite addictive places!

The article also mentions that on the 9th of September 2009 Yahoo! Chiebukuro had surpassed 30 million questions and 80 million answers!
Read the rest of this entry »

Having looked earlier at television recording habits, here’s an interesting look at what people do next from iShare, when they asked people how they consumed recorded television.

Demographics

Between the 19th and 24th of August 2009 591 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 57.0% of the sample were male, 35.2% in their twenties, 31.3% in their thirties, and 33.5% in their forties.

Since we got our hard disk DVD recorder the amount of recorded television has increased, but my watching has decreased! At least blank DVDs are reasonably-priced and don’t take up quite as much space as the millions of VHS tapes lying around the house…
Read the rest of this entry »

About the only proper punctuation mark I use in my mobile emails is a question mark, and this recent survey from Point On Research, as reported on by japan.internet.com, into mobile phone email found that I’m in the majority in my smiley habits.

Demographics

On the first of September 2009 exactly 800 members of the Point On Research monitor group completed a mobile phone-based private questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were male, 20.0% in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

I don’t really use much decomail, not even the animated emoji, as my phone’s a bit old and the interface for accessing them is pretty awkward, so I stick with emoji most of the time.

Oh, and if you need some kaomoji for your phone or PC, please visit my huge collection of Japanese emoticons and smilies.
Read the rest of this entry »

One traditional form of finding a member of the opposite sex is the group dating party thing, or the 合コン, go-kon in Japanese, where a group of usually three of four guys and girls go out and things may or may not develop. Following on from their look at male irritations goo Ranking took a look at what sort of activities from fellow girls at go-kons irritate them.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 24th of July 2009 1,026 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 48.2% of the sample were male, 8.0% in their teens, 14.6% in their twenties, 28.8% in their thirties, 26.0% in their forties, 12.5% in their fifties, and 10.1% 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.

Hmm, the translation for number 13 was unlucky for me and makes no sense! I would welcome a better translation.
Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s a survey that I really should have illustrated with some pictures, but digging around Google in Japanese almost every match I got was definitely not safe for work! Hopefully text only will pass any filters you might have in the office that could potentially block this survey from goo Ranking looking at men’s fetishes, in particular fetishes men would be less eager to talk about.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 24th of July 2009 1,026 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. 48.2% of the sample were male, 8.0% in their teens, 14.6% in their twenties, 28.8% in their thirties, 26.0% in their forties, 12.5% in their fifties, and 10.1% 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. Note that today’s question is for the men only, but the same question has been posed to the women.

Number 2, athletic thighs, is quite a rarity in Japan amongst young women, as usually it is the anorexic look that is in. I’m not really quite sure about wide foreheads, though…

Get your very own number one fetish cellphone strap at Strapya! (aff)
Read the rest of this entry »

I must have missed the first two times this survey came around, as I see this survey from MyVoice into curry is marked as their third time of asking. I’ve previously done DIMSDRIVE on curry, however.

Demographics

Over the first five days of August 2009 13,747 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 1% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 34% in their thirties, 30% in their forties, and 20% aged fifty or older.

Most Japanese currys are really more like spicy stews, and as you can see from Q5, none of the top brands have Indian branding. I usually have currys made from dehydrated roux base, which are OK I suppose, but very occasionally I have a boil-in-the-bag, which are excellent! Sadly, there’s no Indian curry houses nearby that I can get a proper carry-out from.
Read the rest of this entry »

A recent report from japan.internet.com on a survey conducted by iBridge Research Plus stuck together two slightly disjoint topics: the first, the focus of the survey, was noises from electrical items, the second being robocalls, prerecorded calls being blasted to your telephone or mobile phone.

Demographics

On the 24th of August 2009 300 members of the iBridge Research Plus monitor group succesfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample were male, 18.0% in their twenties, 40.3% in their thirties, 36.0% in their forties, 5.0% in their fifties, and 0.7% in their sixties.

The noise is not electromagnetic hum – which would be an interesting topic in itself – but alert tones and tunes such as the wee ditties that my rice cooker and washing machine play on completion, or the automatic bath filler shouting “Your bath is drawn!” when it finishes. I think simple confirmation beeps when using buttons or remote controls are excluded from the survey, given that only 69.0% said they had noisy electricals.

Research results

Q1: Are you bothered by electronic noises from home electrical items? (Sample size=300)

All of it bothers me	3.7%
Some bothers me	29.3%
None bother me	36.0%
Don’t have any noisy electricals	31.0%

Q2: Have you ever had a robocall on your fixed line or mobile phone? (Sample size=300)

Yes (to SQ)	16.3%
No	66.0%
Don’t know	17.7%

Q2SQ: Did you feel uncomfortable when you got a robocall? (Sample size=49)

Yes	53.1%
No	42.9%
Don’t know	4.1%

Putting the two together we get:

Q2+Q2SQ: Has a robocall ever made you feel uncomfortable? (Sample size=300)

Yes	8.7%
No	7.0%
Don’t know	0.7%
Never had a robocall	66.0%
Don’t know if I’ve had a robocall	17.7%

No, I’ve not decided to go into publishing, but instead I’ve just noticed that Google have digitised a book entitled “What Japan Thinks”, written by Kiyoshi Karl Kawakami in 1921 and are offering it in various formats on the Internet Archive for free.

The book is a collection of essays from various authors of various backgrounds written in the years just after the Great War, and provide a fascinating insight into thoughts on socialism, militarism, anti-racism and Christianity at that point in time.

There’s a lot of interesting data in this short survey from Marsh Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into recording television programs, although I’d like to have seen a larger sample size and a more detailed look at some of the data.

Demographics

Between the 27h and 30th of August 2009 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 2.0% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

The more detailed information I’d like (perhaps I’ll get it some time from goo Research’s regular digital TV survey?) is to see if people are currently buying either DVD or Blu-Ray recorders for their digital terrestrial decoders or for their recording capabilities, as it can be seen in Q1SQ2 that the recorders based around the dead HD DVD format are just as popular for time-shifting as Blu-Ray devices. With the analog switch-off less than two years away (24th July 2011), many of the almost one-in-three still using tape are going to find themselves in some trouble, I suspect.

I watch more real-time television – I use the weekends to catch up on stuff I’ve missed.
Read the rest of this entry »

Maids versus butlers would be a good title for a video game I suspect, but here it is just two related surveys from iShare, one on maids and the other on butlers.

Demographics

For the maid survey, between the 10th and 17th of August 2009 618 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.6% of the sample were male, 34.3% in their twenties, 30.4% in their thirties, and 35.3% in their forties.

For the butler survey, between the 11th and 18th of August 2009 587 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.7% of the sample were male, 33.6% in their twenties, 32.0% in their thirties, and 34.4% in their forties.

I’ll report the two surveys interleaved as the questions are similar in each. First will be the maid question which I will suffix with an M, so we get Q1M, for instance, then the butler question with a B, as in Q1B, etc.

Both maid cafes and butler cafes exist in Japan, as do female butler cafes, and no doubt male maid ones do too, but I’m not really in the mood for searching. Incidentally, I’ve recently twice seen on my train back from work a guy looking like a very ordinary otaku type except for a cheap maid dress, trying to hide his stubble behind some foundation, so perhaps he works at some low-end seedy male maid joint?
Read the rest of this entry »