 |
JAPAN
source:
www.japanmediareview.com/japan/
wireless/1047257047.php
www.clickz.com/stats/big_picture/
geographics/article.php/5911_390981
|
|
Most teens and young adults in Japan rarely use computers to surf the World Wide Web. Instead they use cell phones to access a scaled-down wireless web. The result: a growing computer literacy problem among Japan's youth…- indeed, the primary motivation for a Japanese student to go online these days is not to use the Internet, but to get an e-mail address - far cheaper and easier to do with a cell phone than a computer;
- for less than $100 and a few minutes of paperwork, a student can take home a phone and e-mail address from any number of retailers, which are often just a short walk from most train stations. Buying a personal computer means spending $500 or more, making room for the machine in limited space at home, and struggling to set up a dial-up, ADSL or cable Internet connection;
- e-mail exchanges between high school and college students in Japan today take place almost exclusively via cell phones. High school clubs announce activities and meeting schedules via cell phone e-mail, and university class cancellation alerts are delivered primarily to handsets rather than computers;
- the result is a surprisingly passive approach to information gathering and media use via cell phones. While news headline and summary services are available via the carriers' networks, they attract only a fraction of the number of subscribers to entertainment and ‘lifestyle’ offerings, such as ring-tone downloads, cartoon character screensavers, weather reports, map downloads and train timetables. Many news service subscribers are interested primarily in sports scores or other ‘flash’ updates;
- today, 17% of Japanese households - about 8.3 million - have broadband connections to the Internet. That number is expected to grow rapidly, but the cell phone seems for now to have displaced computer use to some extent, particularly among the young.
Nearly 13% of Japanese teenagers have visited online dating sites…*- the report indicates that 2% of males and 7.1% of female middle-school students have accessed dating sites. Among high school students, the figures rise to 18.4% of males and 22% of females;
- most teenagers in Japan access dating sites via their mobile phones: 76.1% of teenagers accessed sites using mobile phones, compared to 23.9% who accessed via PCs, and 14.9% who accessed via personal handy-phone system (PHS) devices;
- the report also reveals that 13.9% of respondents had viewed pornographic images, while 7% had viewed images of cruelty.
* According to a survey conducted by the National Police Agency’s Community Safety Bureau. Source: AsiaBizTech, 2002.
|
