世論 What Japan Thinks

If you miss the last train home, a good tip I hear is to spend the night in an internet cafe. To see how popular that and other activities are at these places, MyVoice recently performed a survey on this very topic of internet cafes.

Demographics

Over the first five days of March 2008 14,691 members of the MyVoice internet community successfully completed a private online questionnaire. 54% were female, 2% in their teens, 15% in their twenties, 38% in their thirties, 29% in their forties, and 16% in their fifties.

Although I have never set foot in one, I have an image of internet cafes as dim and dingy places. I should really visit once just to confirm or dispel my prejudice, but as most will no doubt have a permanent fog of cigarette smoke I might not last more than a couple of minutes!

Last year one of the Words of the Year was Net Cafe Refugees, people working in casual cash-in-hand jobs by day, and dossing down in the cafe by night.
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I’ve never actually ventured into a manga or net cafe myself, as I do have an image of them being dark, slightly dodgy places that smell of stale tobacco and stale otaku. I’m probably completely and utterly wrong, so perhaps in the name of research I should poke my nose in once just to confirm or correct my mental picture! So, as reported by japan.internet.com, recently Cross Marketing Inc looked at internet cafes and manga kissas (comic cafes).

Demographics

Over the 26th and 27th of September 2007 300 people from Cross Marketing Inc’s monitor pool successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The sexes were split 50:50, and 20.0% of the respondents were in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, and 20.0% in their fifties.

The most often used feature I hear about from fellow foreigners is sleeping! If you miss the last train, dossing down in a net cafe is a cheap option, it seems.
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