Conducted every five years since 1960, the Japanese Time User Survey aims to collect basic data for providing broadcast programs better suited to the reality of public lives, by examining their time use on various daily activities. The latest 12th survey was conducted in 2015. Using pre-coded questions, the survey asks respondents to record how much time they spent on each of 28 activities for each 15-minute period. The 2015 survey was carried out in seven two-day sessions held between Tuesday, October 13th and Monday, October 26th, targeting 12,600 Japanese people aged 10 and over nationwide.
The main findings were as follows. With the trend of long working hours remaining, there was a continued tendency of starting work and commuting earlier. Influenced by the recent moves for withdrawing from the “relaxed education” system, schoolwork hours increased and more students commuted to school earlier. With such “engaging in activities earlier in the morning” becoming a social trend, an increase in those who got up earlier continued. In addition to this, this survey found an increase in those going to bed earlier, and as a result, the long-continued decrease in sleeping time stopped. The general trend of time spent on housework stayed the same: time spent by adult women decreased and time by adult men increased, but it was confirmed that the existing gender gap was not narrowed in a rapid pace. Time spent on meals and personal chores also increased, which, along with the change in sleeping time, led to an increase in time spent on “necessary activities.” Regarding mass media use, the viewers/users ratios as well as the amount of time spent on the media, especially television and newspapers, had largely decreased over the past five years, which proved to be the general trend of the Japanese, including elderly people. Meanwhile, users’ ratios of videos,HDDs,DVDs, and the internet had steadily increased. The time allocation for these activities reveals the Japanese time use is shifting: the increase in time spent for “free-time activities” has stopped and time spent on “necessary activities” is increasing.