The Rapid Increase of Internet Use

From the 2006 Time Use Survey in the IT Age

April 2007

The Time Use Survey in the IT Age is a field survey on how people use the Internet on their computers and mobile phones, utilizing a research method of our time use survey. The latest survey was conducted in October 2006, targeting 3,826 Japanese aged 10 to 69. The number of valid responses was 2,431 (63.5% valid response ratio).

When comparing computer use on Monday and Sunday, the nation wide survey shows that 30% of the respondents use computers on Monday, and 23% on Sunday, and that people spend more time on Monday (52 minutes, national average) than Sunday (27 minutes). Both the percentage of computer users on those days and hours spent on computer have increased from the 2001 survey, with a significant increase in web browsing.

  1. 79% of the nationwide respondents own mobile phones (survey on mobile phone ownership), with a notable increases among middle-aged and elderly women. As for usage on Monday and Sunday, nearly half of the respondents use mobile phones both on Monday (46%) and Sunday (48%), significantly increased from 2001. There is a big rise in “e-mail usage,” especially among women in their 30s to 60s. The survey also revealed that female respondents in their teens and 20s spend long hours for e-mail on the phone with around 1 hour on average.
  2. Percentages of people who use the Internet for web-browsing and/or e-mail were 45% on Monday and 44% on Sunday, and average hours spent on the Internet are 45 minutes on Monday and 40 minutes on Sunday, a significant increase from the 2001 survey. It seems that Internet usage has become an everyday activity for almost half of people across Japan. Distinct gender and generation gaps were observed as to how they use the services, such as women tend to use mobile phones for web-browsing and e-mail while men in their 30s tend to use computers.
  3. Analysis on user ratio of and time spent for IT-related activities and the media revealed that television has extremely high percentage of users and time (89% and 3 hours 33 minutes on Sunday), followed by printed media (45%) and mobile phones (48%). User ratios of television and printed media have slightly decreased from the 2001 survey while IT-related activities have increased across the board, suggesting the narrowing gap between times spent for those activities.

The NHK Monthly Report on Broadcast Research