世論 What Japan Thinks

With the recet spate of natural disasters in Burma, China and now Japan itself, this may be a good time to look at a recent survey published on japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into internet donations.

Demographics

On the 5th of June 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor pool employed in private industry completed a members-only internet-based questionnaire. 77.0% of the sample were male, 9.4% in their twenties, 33.0% in their thirties, 40.6% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 1.2% in their sixties.

It’s a pretty low number of donaters and sum they are donating, and it sounds mostly like people getting rid of saved-up points that they have no intention of ever cashing in.
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With Patch Tuesday tomorrow promising (threatening?) three critical updates, let’s look at this survey from JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into comnputer maintainance at home.

Demographics
Over the 3rd and 4th of June 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.9% of the sample were male, 3.3% in their teens, 16.4% in their twenties, 40.3% in their thirties, 21.8% in their forties, 10.0% in their fifties, 5.8% in their sixties, and 2.4% aged seventy or older.

I’m not 100% which camp I fall into, as I have Windows set up to automatically download, but to notify me before install. In addition, I visit Windows Update once a month or so just to see if there is any extra optional components. As for defragmenting, I’ve never done that on my home PC, mostly as it’s too slow, although I’ll do it at work just to make me look busy. I might just do it tonight just to see what happens.
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I hang out occassionally on the Yahoo! Answers Japan board, and I would rate the reliability of the best answers as moderate as best, which is how most Japanese users view these sites, according to a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into Q&A sites.

Demographics

On the 2nd of June 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor group employed in the private sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 81.2% of the sample were male, 10.0% in their twenties, 29.1% in their thirties, 43.6% in their forties, 15.5% in their fifties, and 1.8% in their sixties.

Although trust levels are high, as with Wikipedia the problem is that the casual reader doesn’t know how good the chosen best answer is (on Yahoo! at least; I’m not sure of the others) as it is often the questioner who chooses the answer that sounds best to them, or if it goes to voting then trolls and those gaming the system can outweigh genuine votes. Even with no trolling, a more palatable answer may be chosen over the truth.
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Despite the recent survey showing a distinct lack of interest in podcasting, this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into portable digital audio players shows about 55% of Japanese own suitable players.

Demographics

On the 25th of May 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed in the private sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 72.1% of the sample were male, 13.0% were in their twenties, 40.0% in their thirties, 33.0% in their forties, 11.8% in their fifties, and 2.1% in their sixties.

I’ve got in the mood for using a portable player again, although my memories of the Sony hard disk Walkman that managed to lose track of most of my content twice is still fresh in my memory. However, I can’t be bothered with the hassle of it all, and I do remember that it made the train ride to work less fulfilling and more stressful. This could probably be accounted for by the player transporting me into my own private world, but due to train noises and other leakage of sound into my ears, I could never quite reach there. Despite someone standing over me right now waving a fan just at the edge of my vision with his incessant fap-fap-fap and occassional brushing of the fan against his suit, and another guy slurping from a smelly cardboard pack of one-cup sake, and a third with ciggie breath, I can cope better by facing it rather than trying to hide behind a wall of sound.
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Here’s an interesting topic for tonight’s survey, a look by JR Tokai Express Research Inc, reported on by japan.internet.com, into the matter of IT in medical establishments.

Demographics

On the 13th of May 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor group who were employed in a medical-related field completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 67.3% of the sample were male, 7.9% were in their twenties, 32.7% in their thirties, 44.2% in their forties, 13.6% in their fifties, and 1.5% in their sixties.

Many small clinics these days seem to be running online booking services, so you can make your appointment at the start of the day, and keep a watch on the length of the queue and head for the surgery at a suitable time to minimise your wait.

On the other hand, at big hospitals there is almost always one counter to hand over your consultation form to, which then disappears into a back office for an indeterminate amount of time, then you get called to pay at a different desk. Even big, heavily-computerised hospitals don’t seem to have a fully electronic payment system, and it would seem that there is no practical reason why they couldn’t make the whole system electronic so I could have my bill ready and waiting for payment as soon as I leave the doctor’s office.
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One of the nice things about having a big archive of surveys is that when a survey like this one from JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into the matter of mobile phone batteries comes along, I can point you at the results of a similar survey from last year and the year before.

Demographics

Between the 20th and 23th of May 2008 325 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.2% of the sample were female, 20.6% were in their twenties, 38.5% in their thirties, 26.8% in their forties, 9.2% in their fifties, and 4.9% in their sixties.

I usually recharge at work these days, with a USB adaptor thingie I got free at a conference once. It’s a wonderfully handy device, and it’s easier to remember to do it at work rather than at home. What I should also buy sometime is a clockwork recharger, or perhaps even this interesting one from Strapya, the solar-powered recharger. It looks really cool, and a snip at 1,995 yen! I don’t know how well it would work with overseas phones though.
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With one of the favourite ways to pass the time in trains being fiddling with one’s mobile phone, this recent survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into mobile phone email lets us look at what people are doing with them on the train.

Demographics

On the 10th of May 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed in the private sector completed a closed online questionnaire. 75.5% of the sample was male, 11.5% in their twenties, 35.2% in their thirties, 38.8% in their forties, 11.5% in their fifties, and 2.4% in their sixties. Note that as JR Tokai Express draws some of its monitor base from promotion through JR Tokai Express trains, there may very well be a bias towards people who frequently use the bullet train, where it is acceptable to talk on one’s mobile in between the carriages.

As noted above, as there are probably a lot of business travelers, the 11% who talk on trains might include a certain percentage who only do it on the shinkansen or other long-distance trains where such behaviour is acceptable.

Also in Q2, One Seg television at 12% just beats music playing, but many more people use iPods instead for their in-train audio entertainment.

The extra information from Q2 saying that three in four were checking route information strengthens my assumption that there were a lot of business travelers in the survey.
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This recent survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc looks at the giant of the Japanese Social Networking Service market, mixi.

Demographics

On the 30th of April 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group employed in the private sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 70.6% of the sample was male, 13.0% in their twenties, 43.3% in their thirties, 33.0% in their forties, 8.8% in their fifties, and 1.5% in their sixties. Why exactly they limited the sample to only the private sector is a bit of a mystery to me, however.

Before you ask, sorry, I don’t have any invites to mixi to give to anyone. To sign up you need a Japanese mobile phone email address, but I don’t know of anyone offering a proxy service for sign-ups, whether for free or for a small fee. Indeed, there might be a minor business opportunity there, selling sign-ups. If anyone does know of such a service, or is offering to do sign-ups for free, etc, please drop me a line and I’ll link to you.
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As the proud owner of a spam-free cell phone, this survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into this topic of cell phone spam was rather interesting to see.

Demographics

Between the 1st and 4th of May 2008 312 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor group who were mobile phone email users completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.3% of the sample was female, 2.4% in their teens, 17.6% in their twenties, 37.6% in their thirties, 26.4% in their forties, 9.4% in their fifties, and 4.8% aged sixty or older. Looking at when a similar spam survey was conducted in February 2007, and following the usual pattern of JR Tokai Express Researh, the original sample was actually 330 or 331 people, so just over 5% did not have mobile phones.

One could interpret the results from Q1 to mean that once you’re on a spammer’s list you’re going to get hit badly, as dodgy Japanese companies (or even reputable ones like Rakuten) are not backward about flooding your mailbox or selling on your address. Of course, my PC mailbox for the blog is anything but spam-free, although my private address gets just one per day or so, thanks to POBox.com’s spam filtering.
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Japan industry has the reputation amongst many foreigners for not using IT to the fullest in the office environment, so this survey from JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com may dispel or reinforce (is 50% comparatively high or low?) these stereotypes regarding groupware.

Demographics

On the 28th of April 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel employed in the private sector completed an internet-based questionnaire. 67.3% of the sample were male, 15.5% in their twenties, 46.7% in their thirties, 31.5% in their forties, 5.8% in their fifties, and 0.6% in their sixties.

I used to use Cybozu in the office, which was a nice product even though it was mostly just schedule management I did. Last year I had to migrate to the new corporate home-brew effort that is… Ahh, I wrote two paragraphs about what it is, but then I remembered that my boss sometimes reads the blog.
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