世論 What Japan Thinks

A new-to-me research company called realworld realresearch, which from a quick look at their site seems to be more in the business of being a shopping and stuff portal than a research agency, recently performed a survey into local authorities and IT, as reported by japan.internet.com.

Demographics

On the 13th of October 2008 1,199 people selected by some undescribed means completed a presumably online questionnaire. 52.0% of the sample were female, 15.0% were in their twenties, 16.0% in their thirties, 18.0% in their forties, 21.0% in their fifties, and 30.0% in their sixties. Given the round percentages, don’t ask why they couldn’t find one more person to round the sample up to 1,200! It’s also a curiously top-heavy sample, with the majority of the sample being over fifty.

I’m surprised that (as far as I know) no local authority has tried moving more services online, as one still needs to get a paper print-out of one’s residency certificate for such things as mortgages and other large loans, or at least why there cannot be vending machines that will spew out the documents 24-7 instead of requiring people to attend during working hours.

Here’s my town’s application form download service.
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Well, not literally (although I’m sure some are) but garbage collection and recycling is the most common thing looked up, according to a survey reported on japan.internet.com, conducted by JR Tokai Express Research into the use of local government web sites.

Demographics

On the 3rd of April 330 members of JR Tokai Express Research’s online monitor panel successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.7% of the sample was female, 23.3% in their twenties, 35.5% in their thirties, 22.1% in their forties, 11.8% in their fifties, and 7.3% in their sixties.

One “other” from Q1SQ2 that I had need of was to look up what to do about a bees’ nest, as a new family of wasps decided to move in along with us a couple of years back. Most, if not all, councils will send someone round for free if it is not too big a nest, apparently, and not located in a difficult-to-reach location
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