Demographics

On the 10th of Novermber 2009 800 mobile phone users completed a mobile pone-based questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, 25.0% in their teens, 25.0% in their twenties, 25.0% in their thirties, and 25.0% in their forties.

I’ll add a caveat that as well as the survey being for mobile phone users only, these mobile-only surveys tend to favour heavy users rather than just the average mobile phone user, so there is a degree of bias here.

I can get headlines for free from my mobile phone, but I never find it worth the bother - on the way back home from work I can just peer at other people’s evening papers, and anyway I usually get home in time to see 10 or 15 minutes of news, so I can quite happily live without the latest headlines on my mobile.

Research results

From the sample 639 people, or 79.9% of the original 800, said they read news on their mobile phones. Note that the article explicitly says read rather than including viewing broadcast news on One Seg television, so I’m not sure if in actual fact that was covered. These 639 were asked the following.

Q1: About how often do you read news on your mobile phone? (Sample size=639)

Every day	61.0%
Once every two or three days	30.0%
Once a week	5.8%
Few times a month	2.7%
Once a month	0.3%
Less than that	0.2%

Q2: What genres of news do you read? (Sample size=639, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
News flash, top news stories	585	91.5%
Entertainment	389	60.9%
Domestic	372	58.2%
Sport	246	38.5%
Financial	155	24.3%
Overseas	125	19.6%
Regional	102	16.0%
IT, computer	83	13.0%
Science	42	6.6%

Q3: What is the main reason why you read news on your mobile phone? (Sample size=639)

Can view anywhere	36.2%
Very fresh information	12.2%
Contents are concise	2.2%
Can get information in free time	28.0%
Just to fill time	15.6%
No particular reason	4.5%
Other	1.3%

Q4: Do you read a physical newspaper, have a subscription, etc? (Sample size=639)

Yes	48.4%
Used to, but not now	16.7%
No, never	34.9%

Demographics

Between the 28th and 31st of October 2009 1,071 members of the goo Research online monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.6% of the sample were male, 16.3% in their teens, 18.2% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 15.9% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 12.1% aged sixty or older.

The original Japanese article headlined the story with “Over half of iPhone users use applications daily”, but there was only 36 owners, or 3.7%, in the sample, so the main focus will be on the standard Japanese Java-based world.

In Q3, don’t ask me what the difference between a simulator and a simulation is!

Research results

First of all, 828 people, or 77.3%, had mobile phones that supported some form of downloadable applications. They were asked the following.

Q1: About how often do you use applications on your mobile phone? (Sample size=828)

Almost every day	19.0%
Once every two or three days	14.6%
Once a week	13.5%
Once or twice a month	12.7%
Once every two or three months	4.7%
Once every six months	2.9%
Once a year	1.7%
Just tried some out	18.1%
Never used any	12.8%

Now, all bar the 12.8% who have never applications were asked the next question.

Q2: What kinds of applications have you used? (Sample size=722, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Game	540	74.8%
Mail	292	40.4%
Maps	289	40.0%
Bar code, QR code reader	247	34.2%
Wallpaper	195	27.0%
Navigation	189	26.2%
Clock	188	26.0%
Electronic cash-related	180	24.9%
Dictionary	170	23.5%
Expenses	169	23.4%
News	163	22.6%
Tool	139	19.3%
Remote control	89	12.3%
Full browser	87	12.0%
Electronic book	84	11.6%
Music-related	83	11.5%
Internet banking	80	11.1%
Fortune telling	53	7.3%
Messenger	39	5.4%
Stocks, foreign exchange	37	5.1%
Other	17	2.4%

Next, the 981 mobile phone owners were asked what kinds of applications they would like to see more of. 284 people, or 29.0% said games, 22.6% said maps, 21.5% navigation, 20.4% dictionaries.

Finally, the same 981 were asked the following.

Q3: What kinds of game applications would you like to see more of? (Sample size=981, multiple answer)

	Votes	Percentage
Tetris, Puyo-Puyo, etc	248	25.3%
Puzzle	204	20.8%
RPG	142	14.5%
Quiz	136	13.9%
Table game, card game	115	11.7%
Simulation	103	10.5%
Go, shogi, mahjongg, chess, etc	101	10.3%
Online game	54	5.5%
Adventure	49	5.0%
Sports	45	4.6%
Simulator	45	4.6%
Action	43	4.4%
Shooting	39	4.0%
Racing	33	3.4%
Typing	24	2.4%
Adult	22	2.2%
FPS	18	1.8%
War game	16	1.6%
Other	4	0.4%
None in particular, don’t know	451	46.0%

Demographics

Between the 26th and 29th of October 2009 1,073 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.8% of the sample were male, 16.8% in their teens, 21.3% in their twenties, 21.3% in their thirties, 16.5% in their forties, 15.8% in their fifties, and 11.9% aged sixty or older.

Note that here a keitai novel (”keitai” is short for “keitai denwa”, “portable phone”) is a novel written especially for mobile phones, and often written itself on a mobile phone, rather than just the electronic version of a paper novel consumed on a mobile phone. Hopefully those answering the questions here were fully aware of that distinction!

It would be interesting to see what percentage of people had read the same book in both formats, and the number of books in each format.

Research results

Q1: Have you heard the term “keitai novels”? (Sample size=1,073)

Yes (to SQ1)	92.6%
No	7.4%

Q1SQ1: Have you ever read a keitai novel? (Sample size=996)

Yes (to SQ2)	24.1%
No	75.9%

Q1SQ2: In which format have you read keitai novels? (Sample size=240)

Both electronic and paper	26.2%
Electronic only	57.5%
Paper only	16.2%

Demographics

Between the 18th and 24th of September 2009 1,156 members of the goo Research monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 63.8% of the sample were female, 10.1% in their teens, 20.8% in their twenties, 30.0% in their thirties, 23.4% in their forties, 9.3% in their fifties, and 6.4% aged sixty or older. Note that the score in the results refers to the relative number of votes for each option, not a percentage of the total sample. This does seem like a rather unusual demographic spread for goo Research.

Ranking result

Q: What is the moment when you realise she’s not girlfriend material? (Sample size=418, male)

Rank		Score
1	When I see her littering, other bad manners	100
2	When I see her bad table manners	90.8
3	When I see her being mean to someone else	79.6
4	When I find out about her two-timing someone else in the past	61.2
5	When the conversation doesn’t flow	60.2
6=	When I can’t comprehend her hobbies	59.2
6=	When she talks on and on about herself	59.2
8	When I can’t get her to comprehend my hobbies	56.1
9	When she doesn’t listen to me	52.0
10	When I hear her slag off her friends	50.0
11	When her room is a tip when I go to visit	46.9
12	When she doesn’t place a priority on promises with me	45.9
13	When I notice that her food preferences are rather different to mine	44.9
14=	When she doesn’t pay anything towards dates	33.7
14=	When I realise she has lots of male friends	33.7
16	When I hear about her past loves	24.5
17	When I learn that she’s hopeless at housework	21.4
18	When her mail repies are slow	16.3
19	When her choice of locations for dates is not smart	8.2
20	When I see her in her private wear	7.1

Q: What is the moment when you realise he’s not boyfriend material? (Sample size=738, female)

Rank		Score
1	When I see him littering, other bad manners	100
2	When I see his bad table manners	88.1
3	When I see him being mean to someone else	83.6
4	When he talks on and on about himself	77.2
5	When the conversation doesn’t flow	74.0
6	When he doesn’t pay anything towards dates	64.2
7	When I find out about him two-timing someone else in the past	61.4
8	When he doesn’t listen to me	59.6
9	When I can’t comprehend his hobbies	59.1
10	When I hear him slag off his friends	54.6
11=	When I notice that his food preferences are rather different to mine	49.5
11=	When I can’t get him to comprehend my hobbies	49.5
13	When I realise he has lots of female friends	40.2
14	When he doesn’t place a priority on promises with me	38.4
15	When he always goes Dutch on dates	29.5
16	When I see him in his private wear	23.1
17	When I hear about his past loves	21.7
18	When his mail repies are slow	18.9
19	When his room is a tip when I go to visit	16.2
20	When his choice of locations for dates is not smart	13.5

Demographics

Between the 12th and 15th of October 2009 568 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 58.1% of the sample were male, 34.7% in their twenties, 31.2% in their thirties, and 34.2% in their forties.

Despite needing three trains to get to and from work every day, I’ve never actually slept past my stop, although more than once or twice I’ve woken up after the train has stopped and had to fight my way through the boarding hoards to get off. My first train in the morning is all the way to the end of the line, so I have once been woken by a fellow passenger as I was still dead to the world when we got to the terminal.

Research results

Q1: Have you ever fallen asleep on a train, bus, etc and gone past your destination? (Sample size=568)

	All	Male N=330	Female N=238
Yes, often (to SQs)	2.6%	3.3%	1.7%
Yes, sometimes (to SQs)	53.7%	54.8%	52.1%
No, never	43.7%	41.8%	46.2%

Q1SQ1: Have you ever been unable to get back home after sleeping past your destination? (Sample size=320)

	All	Male N=192	Female N=128
Yes	24.7%	31.8%	14.1%
No	75.3%	68.2%	85.9%

Q1SQ2: Have you ever woken up in an unexpected place after sleeping past your destination? (Sample size=320)

	All	Male N=192	Female N=128
Yes	18.1%	21.9%	12.5%
No	81.9%	78.1%	87.5%

Q2: Are you the sort of person who can fall asleep anywhere? (Sample size=568)

	All	Male N=330	Female N=238
Yes, anywhere	13.7%	14.2%	13.0%
Yes, some places	46.1%	48.5%	42.9%
No, not really	30.5%	29.4%	31.9%
No, not at all	9.7%	7.9%	12.2%

Q3: Do you get drowsy during the average day? (Sample size=568)

	All	Male N=330	Female N=238
Yes, totally	13.9%	13.6%	14.3%
Yes, somewhat	46.8%	44.5%	50.0%
Average	25.9%	28.2%	22.7%
No, not really	10.0%	10.3%	9.7%
No, not at all	3.3%	3.3%	3.4%

Demographics

Over the 27th and 28th of October 2009 1,012 members of the RealWorld RealResearch monitor group successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 64.0% of the sample were male, 6.0% in their teens, 9.5% in their twenties, 10.3% in their thirties, 40.9% in their forties, 18.5% in their fifties, and 14.8% aged sixty or older. That does seem a bit of curiously top-heavy demographic.

When I start up my PC the first thing I do is launch my mail clients (yes, I run two clients to keep my blogging world separate from my family) and my browser, hit the mail check buttons then minimise the mail clients, so end up viewing the browser first, which starts up with the Opera speed dial page, technically, I suppose, a blank page.

I don’t bookmark many sites, but my wife has hundreds of the things which slow down Internet Explorer something rotten, taking over 10 seconds to open a page. I should teach her about sub-folders for bookmarks, but I really haven’t got the energy.

Research results

Q1: What is the first thing you do after switching on your home computer? (Sample size=1,012)

Email check	79.5%
View web site	16.9%
Game	0.6%
Instant messenger	0.4%
RSS reader check	0.4%
Television	0.3%
Other	0.9%
Don’t have a personal-use computer	0.9%
Don’t have any computer at home	0.1%

The next question excluded the 12 people above who didn’t have their own computer.

Q2: What start page do you have set on your browser? (Sample size=1,000)

Blank page	10.4%
Yahoo! or other portal	77.3%
Ordinary site	4.7%
News site	3.2%
Own web site, blog, bulletin board	1.5%
Shopping site	1.0%
Auction site	0.7%
Ordinary blog	0.4%
Family, friend’s web site, blog, bulletin board	0.3%
2ch bulletin board	0.3%
SNS	0.1%
Ordinary bulletin board	0.0%
Movie sharing site	0.0%
Chat-related	0.0%
Don’t know	0.1%

The next question appears to omit 71 people who didn’t use bookmarks or even didn’t use a browser at all. Although if there were non-browser users, wouldn’t Q2 have picked them up?

Q3: How often do you tidy up your browser favourites, bookmarks, etc? (Sample size=929)

Often	29.6%
Sometimes	50.8%
Rarely	13.5%
Never	6.0%
Don’t know	0.1%

Demographics

Between the 13th and 16th of October 2009 498 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 56.6% of the sample were male, 36.7% in their twenties, 30.1% in their thirties, and 33.1% in their forties.

Separate names is by default a fact for international marriages, due to the family register system in Japan - a Japanese-only couple have one family register document for the two of them, so as the document only supports a single surname, couples must have the same official name. However, foreign residents have a separate registration system, so we and our spouses can keep our surnames, although there is a six-month window where one can easily make the change. My wife didn’t change (no particular reason, just too much hassle, I support), but when she renewed her passport she got given a double-barrel with my surname in brackets after hers.

Research results

Q1: Are you married? (Sample size=498)

	All	Male N=282	Female N=216
Yes	40.2%	41.1%	38.9%
No	59.8%	58.9%	61.1%

Q2: Are you currently employed, including part-time, casual, etc? (Sample size=498)

	All	Male N=282	Female N=216
Yes (to SQ)	78.9%	84.4%	71.8%
No	21.1%	15.6%	28.2%

Q2SQ: When one marries, divorces, etc one must change their surname. If you had to, would you want to change the name you use at work? (Sample size=393)

	All	Male N=238	Female N=155
Would really want to	6.9%	6.3%	7.7%
Would perhaps want to	25.7%	24.8%	27.1%
Would perhaps not want to	50.9%	47.1%	56.8%
Would not want to at all	16.5%	21.8%	8.4%

Q3: Which would you want to do: same surnames or different surnames? (Sample size=498)

	All	Male N=282	Female N=216
Different surnames	6.0%	2.5%	10.6%
Same surnames	52.8%	58.5%	45.4%
Either is fine	41.2%	39.0%	44.0%

Interestingly, married people were slightly less keen on having different names and significantly keener on having same names, 61.0% versus 47.3%.

Q4: Currently, a bill is being drafted in order to allow married couples to select different surnames. Do you support this? (Sample size=498)

	All	Male N=282	Female N=216
Support strongly	13.7%	9.2%	19.4%
Support to some degree	41.6%	40.4%	43.1%
Oppose to some degree	29.3%	31.2%	26.9%
Oppose strongly	15.5%	19.1%	10.6%

Demographics

Over the first five days of October 2009 13,534 members of the MyVoice internet community completed a private online questionnaire. 54% of the sample were female, 2% in their teens, 13% in their twenties, 32% in their thirties, 31% in their forties, and 22% aged fifty or older.

Even though the sample used was from the MyVoice internet community, in Q2 you can see that only 8.3% form friendships through the internet. Despite, or perhaps because, being an anti-social git myself, I have made a good number of acquaintances through my blogging, and dare I say it even a friend or two, as I have done through my trusted computing conference attendance.

Two years ago I translated another survey on inter-personal relationships.

Research results

Q1: About how many friends do you have? (Sample size=13,534)

None at all	6.7%
One or two	12.2%
Three or four	22.2%
Five or six	20.6%
Seven or eight	8.5%
Nine or ten	6.0%
Eleven or more	23.8%

Q2: How did you get to know these friends? (Sample size=those with friends, multiple answer)

High school	55.3%
Workplace, customer, other work-related	52.4%
University	38.1%
Junior high school	34.2%
Through hobby	25.1%
Kindergarten, primary school	24.3%
Through children	21.2%
Neighbour, neighbourhood community	12.3%
Computer-based internet community, blog, etc	8.3%
Through family, relatives	7.3%
Through volunteer, other social activities	4.5%
Cram school	2.2%
Mobile phone site	0.7%
Other	5.4%
No answer	0.8%

Q3: How do you keep in touch, communicate with these friends? (Sample size=those with friends, multiple answer)

Talk face-to-face	74.8%
Mobile phone email	63.7%
Talk on mobile phone	48.2%
Computer email	34.3%
Talk on fixed-line home phone	22.4%
Letters, postcards	20.3%
Writing on blogs, SNS, etc	12.9%
Other	1.4%
Don’t really communicate	2.1%
No answer	0.8%

Q4: How satisifed overall are you with your current inter-personal relationships? (Sample size=13,534)

Satisified	15.3%
Somewhat satisfied	62.1%
Somewhat dissatisfied	17.2%
Dissatisfied	4.0%
No answer	1.4%

Q5: Which friends are the bedrock of your current interpersonal-relationships? (Sample size=13,534, multiple answer)

Friends of the same sex	48.7%
Spouse	36.0%
Children	29.2%
Parents	24.9%
Friends of the opposite sex	13.1%
School or work friends	11.9%
Hobby, sports gatherings	11.9%
Other family members, relatives	10.6%
Girlfriend, boyfriend	8.2%
Friends through children	7.0%
Internet community, blog friends	5.2%
Neighbours	4.9%
Local community	2.6%
Through other family members	1.2%
Other	2.2%
None in particular	16.6%
No answer	0.3%

Q6: Regarding socialising, which of the following describe you? (Sample size=13,534, multiple answer)

It’s best to keep a certain distance from other people	47.4%
If I have free time, I prefer to spend it by myself	38.5%
I can’t talk freely with people I don’t know	36.1%
I like having fun with friends	26.3%
I can say what I think face-to-face easier than by email or telephone	25.9%
I have deep but narrow friendships with people who share my hobbies, etc	24.2%
I have a close relationship with my parents, relatives	17.9%
I’m an anti-social git	17.1%
I have broad but shallow friendships	15.1%
It is easier to communicate by email than on the phone or face-to-face	14.6%
I don’t scrimp on spending on socialising	9.1%
I make sure to regularly touch base with my friends	8.8%
I often invite friends round to my house	8.3%
I participate in the neighbourhood association, local events, gatherings, etc	7.4%
None of the above	4.8%
No answer	0.4%

I’ve had a bit of a cold (not influenza!) this weekend, which is why I went silent for three days, and I’ll skip a fuller post today too.

Demographics

On the 26th of October 2009 exactly 300 members of the iBridge monitor group who were either in employment or students completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 76.0% of the sample were male, 9.0% were in their twenties, 31.7% in their thirties, 38.0% in their forties, 17.0% in their fifties, and 4.3% in their sixties.

I don’t switch on my home PC before leaving for work as (a) I don’t have time, and (b) if I did, I’d keep fiddling with it and be even later. However, just last week I have started enacting my latest cunning plan that may (or may not) see me firing up a PC on the train to work.

Oh, and today I was pleased to see that this doctor has an open wireless point in his office, although I don’t know if he is actually aware he is providing it…

Research results

Q1: On weekdays, between waking up and leaving for your commute, do you switch on your home PC? (Sample size=300)

Yes (to SQ1, SQ2)	62.3%
No (to SQ2)	37.0%
Don’t have a PC at home	0.7%

Q1SQ1: What is the first thing you do after switching on your home PC? (Sample size=187)

Check email	69.5%
View Yahoo!, other portal	8.6%
View blog, write blog entry	0.5%
View, tweet to Twitter, other microblog	0.0%
View, write to mixi, Facebook, other SNS	0.0%
Nothing	0.5%
Depends on the day	13.4%
Other	7.5%

Q1SQ2: On weekends, when do you first switch on your home PC? (Sample size=187)

Soon after geting up	48.3%
After breakfast	29.9%
After lunch	11.7%
Before dinner	3.0%
After dinner	4.4%
Before bed	1.3%
Don’t touch the PC on weekends	1.3%