世論 What Japan Thinks

As this is an area in which I have more than just a passing interest, I found this recent survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by goo Research into the matter of mobile phone software upgrades most interesting.

Demographics

Between the 21st and 24th of March 2008 1,090 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.8% of the sample was male, 17.2% in their teens, 19.4% in their twenties, 15.6% in their thirties, 17.3% in their forties, 18.4% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

I suspect my phone is set to manual mode for update notification; my wife, however, had random power-offs when writing mail that I thought may be due to a wonky keyboard, but there had been a software update for the phone, so she downloaded that update and the problem went away.

The low percentage of those with software bugs is due to Japanese quality, where quality is defined as performance to specification. Some specifications are terrible, and the implementation is similarly sometimes suspect, but everything usually works as defined.
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Ahh, excessive overtime, and especially the dreaded euphemistic-named “service overtime”, or unpaid overtime in proper English, is perhaps the biggest culture shock to foreign office workers when they come to Japan. We all have our pet theories about why, but this recent survey conducted by goo Research and reported on by CNET Japan into overtime and work efficiency perhaps answers some questions.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 24th of February 2008 1,080 members of the goo Research monitor panel employed as businesspeople completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 68.2% were male, 24.5% in their twenties, 24.9% in their thirties, 25.3% in their forties, and 25,3% aged fifty or older.

My employer is one of the rare companies that has embraced Work-Life Balance as a slogan at least. However, some recent news that I don’t think I should mention has revealed that they are about to take a very bold, perhaps even unique in Japanese large companies, step to address one issue regarding this balance. We shall see how it all pans out…

The title of the survey implies that there was some questions regarding how people view the effectiveness of overtime; outside crunch times there is a general perception amongst foreigners that the Japanese spin out an 8 hour working day over 12 or more hours, so I’d have loved to have seen the outcome of questions regarding that issue. Sadly, the original Japanese article did not report this aspect.
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I’ve not played anything online for years but perhaps I am missing out on something, judging by this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by goo Research into online gaming.

Demographics

Over the 13th and 14th of March 2008 1,096 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.6% of the sample were male, 17.6% in their teens, 19.4% in their twenties, 16.1% in their thirties, 17.0% in their forties, 18.4% in their fifties, and 11.5% aged sixty or older.

Note that Q1 means computers only, not consoles or handheld machines.

In the comments for another article I got wind of a new (currently in closed beta) MMORPG, Hello Kitty Online, apparently a mix of RPG-type quests and guilds, puzzles, virtual property development, and an SNS.
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This is a rather short but still interesting survey from goo Research, conducted in conjunction with the Mainichi Shimbun, into the proposed reforms to the national curriculum, particularly with regard to elementary school education.

Demographics

Over the 29th of February and the 1st of March 2008 1,069 members of the goo Research online monitor group aged 20 or older were randomly-selected and completed a private internet-based questionnaire. More detailed demographics were not given.

Some of the reforms proposed are outlined in this article from the Japan Times.

These changes are to address the drop in academic level in international tests (or is it that other countries are improving, or a mix of both?) by studying more. Looking at the league leader Finland, it can be seen that there are neither long school hours nor much pressure, whereas Japan’s solution seems to be adding more hours and more pressures. I’ve seen television programmes investigating Japanese education, and the problem teachers identify is too much overtime for them to be able to prepare for lessons or to be at their best when teaching. Overtime has indeed steadily increased over the decades, so more hours in classes and a new curriculum to learn is not going to fix that.

Most foreigners I know who teach in schools also highlight the lack of classroom dicipline and too many events (sports day, culture days, etc), the preparation for which disrupt teaching schedules for both teachers and students.

The teaching of pi equals three is actually true to a certain extent. In the current guidelines, teachers should use 3.14, but in certain circumstances (what circumstances, the curriculum guidelines do not say) three may be used.
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One key skill that most newcomers to Japan need to learn is how to navigate the train system. To find out how the locals find their way around, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by goo Research into looking up train routes and connections.

Demographics

Between the 22nd and 25th of February 2008 1,095 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% were male, 16.2% were in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.0% aged sixty or older.

As I’m quite familiar with the train routes around my local area, I usually look up my route on Yahoo! Transit to find the approximate journey time then commit the stations to change at to memory. One option I see missing from the list below, however, is taking a mobile phone photograph of a QR code that contains a web address representing the route. I thought that Yahoo! Transit supported such a feature, but it seems that’s their maps only.

Photo by tantek
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Round about the time of the release of the Nintendo DS there was a lot of buzz about the new demographics they were reaching, in particular how the range of brain training software was selling well in the older market segment. To see what the situation is these says, goo Research, in conjuction with AllAbout Japan, surveyed the “Mrs” demographic about their use of digital items and game machines.

Demographics

Over the 17th and 18th of December 2007 1,076 members of the goo Research online monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. The “Mrs” demographic was married women between the ages of 50 and 69, with 33.9% aged between 50 and 54, 33.9% between 55 and 59, and 32.2% in their sixties.

I remember once trying to tempt my mother into gaming with The Hobbit on the Sinclair Spectrum, but I can’t say it was much of a success at all. However, the brain training games would be fun for her, perhaps, or even if they weren’t I could play them instead…
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I’ve always meant to get into Social Network Services (or Sites), but just never had the time, or quite frankly the inclination! To see what the Japanese are thinking about them these days, japan.internet.com reported on the 11th regular SNS survey conducted by goo Research.

Demographics

Between the 8th and 13th February 2008 1,097 members of the goo Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.1% of the sample was male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.3% in their twenties, 21.4% in their thirties, 16.3% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 12.3% aged sixty or older.

There really ought to be a specialised Japan blogger SNS or other forum for exchange of ideas and the like; I know that I have far more ideas than I have time to realise them, so some way to allow us all to keep in touch would be most useful. There has been moves by the Daily J, but it really needs someone to grab the bull by the horns and give it a good kick up the backside. I’d love to do it myself, but time is the one thing I do not have.
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With cellphones getting more and more features packed into them, here’s an interesting survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by goo Research into cellphone input devices.

Demographics

Between the 15th and 17th of February 2008 1,092 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.2% were male, 16.4% in their teens, 18.0% in their twenties, 21.6% in their thirties, 16.4% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 11.7% aged sixty or older.

I think a full keyboard is nice to have, but none of the ones I’ve seen seem to be practical, as the keys are all far too tightly spaced, rendering the device pretty useless. A fingerprint reader is popular here, perhaps with people thinking about the security aspect, although compared to using a PIN, I don’t really think there is much of a benefit. The acceleration sensor is for motion games, and features on some of the 905i series of phones from NTT DoCoMo, but I cannot really see the practical use at all.
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This is an interesting recent survey reported on by cNet Japan and conducted by goo Research into the topic of the use of cameras by seniors.

Demographics

Over the 6th and 7th of February 2008 1,001 members of the goo Research monitor pool aged over sixty were interviewed by means of a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.4% were male, and 69.3% were in their sixties, 15.9% aged seventy or older. Note that since this was internet-based, all were internet users by definition. In addition, as a control sample over the same period 174 people in their thirties, 51.7% female, were asked the same questions.

Not falling into either of the age groups it’s difficult for me to comment, but one thing I thought initially was that the number of SLR users is low as I always see a few old people with big cameras whenever I go to parks, but then I realised that it’s just selective recall, as one remembers a big camera.
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With the source of the gyoza poisoning still to be determined, here’s a timely survey from goo Research in conjunction with the Yomiuri Shimbun into food safety.

Demographics

Towards the end of January 2008, but before the poisoned gyoza scandal broke, 1,089 members of the goo Reseach monitor group completed a private online questionnaire. The age or sex breakdown was not reported.

The full survey would have been interesting to see, but goo Research sadly only reported three questions. An earlier survey from MyVoice on Chinese products provides a useful cross-reference.
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