世論 What Japan Thinks

[part 1] [part 2]

With Panasonic in particular chasing the female market with their P-07C Android smartphone, iShare took a look at the basics of how women choose smartphones.

Demographics

Between the 14th and 16th of June 2011 968 female members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 10.8% of the sample were in their twenties, 45.1% in their thirties, and 44.0% in their forties.

As noted below, almost everyone I see, both male and female, has a case for their smartphone. Given that the most popular style of feature phone is the clamshell, perhaps people are not in the habit of carefully stowing phones away from keys and other sources of scratches?
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Since the Fukushima Dai-ichi meltdown, one of the problems occuring has been the worries about radioactive particles in the tap water (I’d argue that the worries exceed the actual danger), so it was interesting to see this survey from iShare into drinking water for infants.

Demographics

On the 13th of June 2011 576 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 63.9% of the sample were female, 11.8% in their twenties, 80.6% in their thirties, and 7.6% in their forties. All of the sample lived in Tokyo prefecture and had bought mineral water for infants.

The one or two times I’ve been in Tokyo, however, I don’t think I’ve actually drunk the water, so I cannot say how nice or otherwise it is.

In Q7SQ, I never knew there was a recommended water for formula milk! Soft water is apparently the correct answer, and most of the water in Japan is soft. Q10 and Q10SQ shows just over three in four women with infants worry about Fukushima fallout in their water – do is that a larger or smaller percentage than you would imagine?

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Since the Fukushima Dai-ichi meltdown, one of the problems occuring has been the worries about radioactive particles in the tap water (I’d argue that the worries exceed the actual danger), so it was interesting to see this survey from iShare into drinking water for infants.

Demographics

On the 13th of June 2011 576 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 63.9% of the sample were female, 11.8% in their twenties, 80.6% in their thirties, and 7.6% in their forties. All of the sample lived in Tokyo prefecture and had bought mineral water for infants.

For Q2, people were asked why they had stocked up on water since the earthquake, some of the more common answers were that they wanted to have a supply if the tap water became contaminated, they don’t want their children to drink tap water, they stocked up just in case, and domestic water is safer than imported brands. That final option does seem a bit odd to me.
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Since the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake Disaster on March 11th, even people outside the immediate disaster area have felt aftershocks in their daily life. This survey from iShare looked at how one’s lifestyle has changed post-earthquake.

Demographics

Over the 9th and 10th of June 2011 1,223 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.3% of the sample were male, 9.3% in their twenties, 45.5% in their thirties, and 45.1% in their forties. All of the sample lived in either Tokyo, Osaka, or Aichi (Nagoya area) prefecture.

I don’t think I’ve really done anything special since the earthquake, bar buying a new fan, but that was more due to the general high price of electricity bills than due to any specific awareness of reducing power consumption as requested by the local electricity board.
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As it was Fathers Day last Sunday this survey from iShare looked at images of modern-day fathers.

Demographics

Between the 30th of May and the 1st of June 2011 1,343 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-base questionnaire. All of the sample was married, 50.1% of the sample were female, 3.4% in their twenties, 41.7% in their thirties, and 54.9% in their forties.

This survey looked at a new word to me, イケダン, ikedan. The word is a combination of イケる, ikeru, hip or trendy (with a hint of being attractive to the opposite sex) and だんな, danna, husband. It’s a play on イケメン, ikemen, cool guy with a hint of availability.

There’s an ikedan web site, which has the five mottos of an ikedan, namely “Be elegant”, “Live strong”, “Don’t forget to be gentle”, “No excuses”, and “Do things in moderation”. This survey listed the characteristics as “Keeping family important while working hard”, “Don’t hesitate to lend the wife a hand even when busy”, “look cool on the outside too”, and “Not skimping on fashion”, taken from Ikedan Japan web site, which is some kind of Nissan promotion.

Doesn’t look like my style; I’d rather aspire to be a choi-waru oyaji myself!
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With almost every day bringing a new revelation about how TEPCO failed to release data in a timely manner, and how the government is trying to protect TEPCO or itself rather than kicking ass and taking names, this survey from iShare into nuclear-related information from the government found that not surprisingly, many, many people are dissatisfied.

Demographics

On the 15th of April 2011 1,193 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.3% of the sample were male, 8.9% in their twenties, 45.7% in their thirties, and 45.4% in their forties. People from the disaster-affected areas were not surveyed.

Note that this survey was conducted over a month ago, and I suspect if it were repeated today the figures would be even further down the scales of trust and speed, as this week we have finally had official notification that there was a meltdown, despite all evidence pointing towards some degree of fuel rod melting and two months of most commentators agreeing that there had been.
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iShare’s latest look at issues surrounding the earthquake on March 11th was at usage of web services in times of emergency.

Demographics

On the 15th of April 2011 1,193 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 42.3% of the sample were male, 8.9% in their twenties, 45.7% in their thirties, and 45.4% in their forties.

I confirmed my safety first via email to my parents, then by blog. Although I didn’t directly post to any social web service, my blog posts automatically end up on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn so I suppose technically I did use such a web service as asked by Q1 and Q1SQ.

The last time there was a disaster was the derailment of the JR train at Amagasaki, on the line I used then, but that time my parents confirmed my safety via a post I made that got published on the BBC news web site.
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I don’t know if it’s all part of the mood of self-restraint or economising since the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake Disaster, but the two main survey sources I use have been printing shorter than usual surveys, which means I’m seeing an economic effect of the recent earthquake, which was also the subject of a recent survey by iShare.

Demographics

Between the 8th and 11th of April 2011 761 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service employed either full-time or part-time or self-employed completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 59.1% of the sample were male, 2.1% were in their twenties, 45.5% were in their thirties, and 52.4% in their forties. Due to iShare making an error in reporting the male-female ratio, I can deduce that the original sample was 922 people, so 161 people, or 17.5% of the original sample were either unemployed, in casual work, or full-time homemakers.

I’m very surprised that only the minority have seen adverse effects, as it seems that almost all businesses are being affected to some extent by the mood of self-restraint, or even just simply breaks in the supply chain due to upstream or downstream companies being directly affected by the earthquake or tsunami.

However, my own workplace has had no direct adverse effects, but I suppose working in research and development we don’t have any real customers.
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With the earthquake having knocked out a lot of power generation in the Tokyo area, one of the methods being mooted for saving electricity is to increase telecommuting, the topic of a recent survey by iShare.

Demographics

Between the 8th and 11th of April 2011 670 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 60.6% of the sample were male, 2.4% were in their twenties, 46.7% in their thirties, and 50.9% in their forties. All of the sample were employed and worked outside the home.

At work we have a telecommute environment complete with a quite frankly horrendous email client and a remote meeting application that I’ve never used. However, this environment can only be accessed via work notebook computers, but even though we have a draconian set of information security rules I think almost everyone else in the office works around them; I try to avoid working at home, so put no effort into making an easier environment for myself.

Regarding telecommuting and saving power – my employer too will be promoting it this summer, despite being outside the affected areas, and of course everyone in the office noticed that the additional load from a home air conditioner is more than that saved by one less body in the office and one less body in the trains. We’re forbidden from working in a coffee shop, so we can’t even borrow someone else’s cool air for work…
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This time it is iShare taking a look at scheduled power cuts, finding that not surprisingly, most people were glad to get back to regular power, but a lower than I might have thought majority were opposed to them restarting in the summer.

Demographics

Between the 8th and 11th of April 2011 922 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.7% of the sample were male, 2.3% in their twenties, 45.0% in their thirties, and 52/7% in their forties.

If this summer is as hot as last summer, and last summer’s power consumption patterns are repeated, the Tokyo area will be short about 1 gigawatt of power generation capability. However, there are a lot of moves afoot, such as vending machines cutting their refrigeration to consume about 30% less power, pachinko parlours shutting down their neon signs, and companies everywhere getting rid of unnecessary lighting, although from the images I’ve seen on TV it does seem a bit excessive, such as cinemas turning off the lighting on street-level posters (perhaps A2 in size?), making it look as if they are actually shut, all for a less than a kilowatt saved.
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