世論 What Japan Thinks

A recent report from japan.internet.com on a survey conducted by iBridge Research Plus stuck together two slightly disjoint topics: the first, the focus of the survey, was noises from electrical items, the second being robocalls, prerecorded calls being blasted to your telephone or mobile phone.

Demographics

On the 24th of August 2009 300 members of the iBridge Research Plus monitor group succesfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 53.0% of the sample were male, 18.0% in their twenties, 40.3% in their thirties, 36.0% in their forties, 5.0% in their fifties, and 0.7% in their sixties.

The noise is not electromagnetic hum – which would be an interesting topic in itself – but alert tones and tunes such as the wee ditties that my rice cooker and washing machine play on completion, or the automatic bath filler shouting “Your bath is drawn!” when it finishes. I think simple confirmation beeps when using buttons or remote controls are excluded from the survey, given that only 69.0% said they had noisy electricals.

Research results

Q1: Are you bothered by electronic noises from home electrical items? (Sample size=300)

All of it bothers me	3.7%
Some bothers me	29.3%
None bother me	36.0%
Don’t have any noisy electricals	31.0%

Q2: Have you ever had a robocall on your fixed line or mobile phone? (Sample size=300)

Yes (to SQ)	16.3%
No	66.0%
Don’t know	17.7%

Q2SQ: Did you feel uncomfortable when you got a robocall? (Sample size=49)

Yes	53.1%
No	42.9%
Don’t know	4.1%

Putting the two together we get:

Q2+Q2SQ: Has a robocall ever made you feel uncomfortable? (Sample size=300)

Yes	8.7%
No	7.0%
Don’t know	0.7%
Never had a robocall	66.0%
Don’t know if I’ve had a robocall	17.7%