世論 What Japan Thinks

In a survey performed by infoPLANT on games machine ownership (warning: Japanese PDF), and translated in detail here, the most stunning result of the questionnaire is that the sales of the Nintendo DS seems to be driven by the older generation, as can be seen from the chart on the right.

The most likely explanation for this trend, I believe, is the brain training boom in Japan, in particular the Brain Age game and other similar titles that promise to ward off senility and keep one’s mind active, even though the celebrity advertising it on the television is merely a pretty young thing.

On a slight side note, my voice was one of the voices used to tune the recognition engine for British English for the European launch of the Brain Age titles.

Dentsu Inc recently carried out a survey (their “Trendbox Research”, to use the brand name) to find out what people thought about their brains. At the start of January they interviewed 400 people from up and down the country. Exactly half and half of the respondents were male and female, and 100 people were in each decade of life from the twenties to the fifties.

Brain training is rather a hot topic in Japan today; products on sale range from books of simple arithmetic or simple kanji to read out loud, to the Nintendo DS Brain Training game series, to which I actually contributed a very, very small part!

Oh, and here’s a bit of brain training I learnt about on TV a couple of weekends ago for getting rid of some chronic fatigue. The idea is that you need to stimulate your frontal lobes before going to bed, as increased activity there results in more cortisone and serotonin, which gets your body recharged quicker, or something like that. So, in addition to taking in sufficient B complex vitamins and calcium, before you go to sleep press your temples as you slowely breath out, then release as you breath in. Repeat ten times, then just before you sleep picture someone’s face – it works best if it is someone you dislike, apparently, but make sure you don’t dislike them too much and stress yourself out!
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