世論 What Japan Thinks

japan.internet.com recently reported on the results of a survey conducted by goo Research into collecting and exchanging points online.

Demographics

Between the 13th and 15th of April 2007 1,085 members of goo Research’s online monitor group successfully completed an online private questionnaire. 51.7% were male, 24.2% in their twenties, 22.2% in their thirties, 21.8% in their forties, 21.3% in their fifties, and 10.5% in their sixties.

I think this survey is focused not on using shopping points to obtain discounts when purchasing more items, but on points gathered not just from shopping but from other activities such as participating in surveys. Note that since goo Research monitors receive points for filling out surveys, I am not sure if the respondents were to asked to exclude their goo points from their answers.
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Spring is sprung and the sap is rising, and young thoughts turn to love, so let’s enjoy a recent survey from goo Research, conducted between the 27th and 29th of March 2007 amongst 555 single youths, most in their twenties, from all over Japan, on the matters of love and laughter. Note that the male-female split is not reported.

It does seem a rather disjoint pair of topics, but the answers are rather interesting. I do find it amusing that half as many women are in love than men, which perhaps prompts the question “what exactly does ‘love’ mean to you?” Alternatively, perhaps it is the unwillingness of men to commit themselves to a serious relationship, or just that women have stronger passions than men.

Note that the word used in the survey for being in love is 恋愛, ren’ai.

Let’s get a little personal, ack, no, let’s not get too personal, as I’ll sound far too soppy! I’ll just say it was common values that was the main spark for me, as well as that special magic, and it didn’t take too long (a month and a half?) for me to realise that we would marry. Oh, and we met through an “Other” method.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on goo Research’s sixth regular Social Networking Service (SNS) sruvey.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 11th of April 2007 1,086 members of goo’s online monitor group completed a questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample were male, 17.4% in their teens, 19.9% in their twenties, 17.9% in their thirties, 17.5% in their forties, 16.5% in their fifties, and 10.9% in their sixties.

I supose satisfaction levels are a given, as people wouldn’t tend to use SNSs if they weren’t enjoying them, although it does seem that 3% are soldiering on regardless.
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With both the 2007 Japan Professional Baseball and the 2007 US Major League Baseball seasons underway, and with wall-to-wall Japanese television coverage of the exploits of the local players in the Major League, goo Research, in conjuction with the Mainichi Shimbun, performed a survey that looked at reformation of the professional baseball draft system in Japan. This article contains just the highlights of the fuller survey that they conducted.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 26th of March, members of goo Research’s online monitor group were randomly selected and 1,089 of them successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire.

As well as the US careers of Ichiro Suzuki, Hideki Matsui and Daisuke Matsuzaka, the other big baseball-related topics are plans to reduce the length of time before becoming eligible for Free Agency from the current nine years, and to reform the draft system to prevent, or at least reduce, problems occuring from cases such as amateurs receiving dodgy handouts from the Seibu Lions.
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The Yomiuri Shimbun, in conjunction with goo Research, recently published the results of a survey conducted between the 9th and 11th of March on the subject of global warming.

Demographics

1,107 members of goo Research’s internet monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50% of the sample was male, 22% in their twenties, 18% in their thirties, 21% in their forties, 17% in their fifties, and 21% aged sixty or older.

Note that the winter of 2006/2007 was very mild, with no snow falling in Tokyo during the official winter period, the first time this had occurred since records began in 1877, thus perhaps focusing minds on the topic. In addition, Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth had recently opened in Japanese cinemas.

Although this survey reports broad support for charging for plastic bags at checkouts, according to some statistics I saw, these bags represent just 2% of all household rubbish, in constrast to other plastic food wrappers making up almost 30% of the average garbage bag. The defense I saw of the policy was that the fees may engender awareness of the overuse of wrappings thus encourage people to use less, but it is the manufacturers who do the overwrapping, so there is little that the consumer can do to influence this, I fear.
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japan.internet.com recently published the results of a survey conducted by goo Research into the use of on-line fortune-telling sites and services.

Demographics

Between the 23rd and 25th of March 1,079 members of goo Research’s online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.7% were male, 24.2% in their twenties, 22.5% in their thirties, 22.1% in their forties, 20.8% in their fifties, and 10.5% in their sixties.

The demographics are worth bearing in mind when reading the results; one has the impression that women are more interested and more believing of horoscopes and the like, so perhaps this survey suggests a majority of women may read their fortune online regularly. I would love to see the full data.

I did look at this topic last year, so it may be useful to check that data out too. Sadly, in a way, I believe astrology is all bunk. Sadly, as I do get a noticable amount of traffic searching for “japanese astrology”, so if I had no scruples I could monetize this traffic quite easily!

One thing I find interesting is that with the fuss over television programs making stuff up, there seems to be little or no collateral damage on these frauds, including the chief witch, Kazuko Hosoki, who still gets prime-time coverage, although I suppose people do enjoy her as much for her sharp tongue as for her divination. Still, at least she doesn’t seem quite as irresponsible as Sylvia Browne.


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japan.internet.com recently published the results of goo Research’s 30th regular blog research. This has been carried out every month for the last two and a half years, but this is the very last time they will perform it.

Demographics

Between the 12th and 14th of March 1,073 members of goo Research’s monitor panel successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.2% of the sample was male, 17.8% in their teens, 19.3% in their twenties, 18.0% in their thirties, 17.2% in their forties, 17.0% in their fifties, and 10.7% aged sixty or more.

Perhaps because this is the last time, there’s a bit more demographic information presented in the results than usual. The reason for stopping this research seems to be that because blogging is now firmly planted in the awareness of internet users, there is little extra to be gained from continuing the research.
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japan.internet.com recently reported on a survey with a slightly odd topic conducted by goo Research regarding receiving mail from MAILER-DAEMON. Just in case you are wondering what this is, legitimate replies from the legitimate MAILER-DEMON means that mail counldn’t be delivered, but often spam or viruses use fake MAILER-DEMON messages to try to get past filters.

Demographics

Between the 9th and 11th of March, 1,072 members of the goo Research monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 51.8% of the sample were male, 25.3% in their twenties, 23.0% in their thirties, 22.4% in their forties, 21.4% in their fifties, and 8.0% in their sixties.

In Q1SQ3 about three in five read MAILER-DAEMON messages at least some of the time, yet it is one of the vectors of spam and viruses. Note that for some reason most Japanese MAILER-DAEMONs speak in English, and only very rarely does Japanese feature, even in my employer’s internal system, even though it seems like all you need to do is to provide a simple template file for the new error message, in the case of Postfix at least. Does it incorrectly handle Japanese and other double-byte characters, I wonder?
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Continuing on the movie theme, last week japan.internet.com published the results of research conducted by goo Research into cinema ticket buying habits. I would love to find a web site that allows you to buy tickets at a discount, but such a site doesn’t seem to exist. Does anyone know of a good one?

Demographics

1,064 members of goo Research’s online monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.1% of the sample was male, 23.3% in their twenties, 22.3% in their thirties, 22.5% in their forties, 21.3% in their fifties, and 10.6% in their sixties.

It may be interesting to cross-reference the results here with the recent MyVoice survey I published yesterday on cinema attendance.
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goo Research recently published the results of some research conducted in cooperation with Yomiuri Shimbun into fish and shellfish, conducted amongst their online monitor group between the 16th and 18th of the February.

Demographics

1,091 successfully completed the questionnaire. 50.3% were male, 21.8% in their twenties, 18.4% in their thirties, 21.6% in their forties, 17.5% in their fifties, and 20.6% aged sixty or older.

Note that in Q7 just 1% eat fish or shellfish less than once a month, which suggests that vegetarianism still has a long, long way to go in Japan! In addition, I wouldn’t be surprised if a significant part of that 1% included people who eat meat instead.

You may be interested in cross-referencing this with another recent survey on tuna habits and quota cut awareness.
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