世論 What Japan Thinks

goo Ranking recently published statistics of the number of outbound links from blogs it manages under the http://blog.goo.ne.jp brand.

This being raw statistics, there’s no sample size, and note that some of the links might be to more than one page within a site, not just the top page.
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goo Research recently published the results of a survey they carried out into exercise, either taking it or watching other people doing it. Demographics are not clearly expressed, but aproximately 1,000 employed people from their monitor pool completed the survey. About eigth-tenths worked full-time for public or private enterprises as either permanent or contract staff, and nearly nine-tenths were salaried employees. Freelancers and self-employed made up the remaining one and a bit tenths.

Exercise is one of these things I mean to do more of, but… There’s no shortage of clubs, but basic fees start at not much less than 10,000 yen per month or about 2,000 yen per visit, which is a bit much.

As for watching, she who owns the remote has no interest, so neither do I…
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With me on a Shinkansen up to Yokohama for the CHES (Cryptographic Hardware and Embedded Systems ’06 Conference rather than attending a regular health check, it would be quite appropriate to look at this survey conducted at the start of last month by MyVoice into health checks. 13,126 people from their monitor pool responded, 54% female, 3% in their teens, 21% in their twenties, 39% in their thirties, 24% in their forties, and 13% aged fifty or older.

In Japan, I believe the law states that all companies must provide their employees with annual health checks, but the law doesn’t state how detailed they should be. In my employer’s case, every year we get our height, weight, urine, eyes and ears checked, and a chest X-ray. I personally opt out of the chest X-ray most times as it’s apparently a check for lung cancer and TB, but according to reliable internet data, there are far more effective tests for latent TB and X-rays should only be needed to confirm an outbreak, and as for lung cancer, first I don’t smoke, and second, once it’s big enough to turn up on an X-ray it’s most likely terminal. Japan also has the highest number of medical X-ray exposures per person per year and the highest rate of cancer attributed to medical X-rays, two facts which I can’t help feel are connected somehow.

My company also once every three to five years does a blood test, poo test, and a barium meal, plus additional ten-year checks, and also recently has started annual fitness tests consisting of grip strength, bike riding, sit-ups, reaction times, balancing on one leg with eyes shut (yes, really!), and recovery rate checks, which is the test I’m skiving out of today.

In addition, many local councils offer their residents various free checks at various stages of life.
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japan.internet.com published the results of an opinion poll conducted by goo Research into online gaming. At the start of October 1,079 members of their monitor panel successfully completed a private internet survey; 44.5% of the sample were male, 2.4% were in their teens, 21.0% in their twenties, 43.5% in their thirties, 23.4% in their forties, and 9.6% in their fifties.

One thing I’m not sure of for this survey is whether online games means just massive multiplayer ones or whether it covers smaller games like first-person shooters, or simple card games through Yahoo! and the like.

I never got into trading as I felt it was a waste of money and felt to me as cheating. I didn’t have too much of a problem with buying gold, but when it felt that there were more people interested in farming items for selling either in-game or outside of the game it lost much of its charm.
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NEPRO Japan recently published the results of a survey that they conducted into mobile phones with GPS functionality. They conducted the respondents by means of an open survey available through the menu systems of the three main phone companies’ web systems, namely DoCoMo’s iMode, Vodafone (now Softbank) live! (which has just changed its name “Yahoo! Keitai”, judging by the advertisements I’ve seen), and au and TU-KA’s EZweb. Over 17 hours during the 7th and 8th of September 3,608 people successfully completed the survey; 58% were female, 2% in their teens, 35% in their twenties, 44% in their thirties, and 19% aged forty or older.

GPS is Global Positioning System, a system for locating where you currently are based on triangulation with satellites. I’ve heard it doesn’t work so well in the shadows of tall buildings or of course underground, so one would think that the use in Japan is rather limited. However, there do seem to be a number of software tools that build around the GPS system, from walking navigation systems to substitutes for car navigation via, of course, keeping track of your children.
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Following on from yesterday’s post showing us that the best way of getting rich quick is the lottery, here’s a survey from goo Ranking about where people keep their lottery tickets. As usual for these ranking surveys, there is no demographic information and the rank for each choice is expressed as a percentage of the votes for the top answer. The survey was conducted towards the end of August.

Don’t ask me why people put their tickets in the fridge, but if anyone else knows, please leave me a message.
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As part of DIMSDRIVE Research’s 94th Ranking Survey, they asked members of their monitor group to tell them the best way to get rich quick. This survey used a new to me kanji expression, 一攫千金, ikkaku senkin, meaning, as you might guess from the title of this post, get rich quick.

Not surprisingly, number one by a long, long way is the tax on the stupid, the lottery. Share dealing’s rating no doubt hasn’t been helped by the ongoing recession and the livedoor incident.
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With both Amazon and Apple recently opening film and video download services, towards the end of September japan.internet.com, in conjunction with goo Research, looked at what people thought about downloading movies. 1,043 people from their internet monitor group, 55.5% female, successfully completed a private internet survey. 21.8% were in their twenties, 40.1% in their thirties, 25.9% in their forties, 9.1% in their fifties, and 3.2% in their sixties.

The results here are interesting; although there is a slight majority not interested in downloading, those who download want to watch on the television. However, with the proliferation of wide-screen televisions, high-definition broadcasts and Blue Ray disks, a standard lower-than-DVD quality download might look rather poor on a 38 inch plasma display.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey by Cross Marketing Inc into music habits. They interviewed 300 people from their internet monitor poll; exactly 50% were male, and 20.0% in each of their teens, twenties, thirties, forties and fifties.

I myself haven’t actually listened to music very actively lately, barring snippets on television or CDs that my wife plays. I’m sure if I were to add up the hours, I’ve probably actually listened to more live music than pre-recorded this year!

Looking at the pie chart, it’s interesting to note that people tend to stick with what they know: impulse purchases or trying new artists seems not too popular, perhaps related to physical sales being so popular when compared to digital downloaded even if the opportunity to listen to a preview is greater online.
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This slightly broken English in the post title is the catchphrase of not just Osaka’s, but a national promotion to persuade people to view looking after their teeth as a lifelong commitment. I’ve covered teeth in a number of other posts, but the statistical fact I learnt yesterday on a train covered in posters for said campaign was that current 80 year olds (in Osaka only? in the whole of Japan?) only have on average around four teeth left.

The reasons for this poor record are not just as revealed in the earlier surveys, a lack of regular care and maintentance by a professional, but also a large number of dentists who would often rather just yank a tooth instead of repairing it. There’s also more than a fair share of incompetent dentists, of course, but fortunately mine doesn’t fall into either category.