How Media Are Used in Daily Lives

The NHK Japanese Time Use Survey, which has been conducted by NHK every five years since 1960, is faced with a difficulty in making time-series analyses of people’s media use activities, affected by the spread of the internet, the diversification of media tools, etc. Taking this issue into consideration, we held the Time Use Survey on Media Use in December 2018, with an aim to study more precisely Japanese media use in their daily lives. In designing the survey, we devised a way to capture fragmented media use activities, added questionnaire items on respondents’ communication behavior on social media and other internet sites, and surveyed their media use by devices and including when they are on the move. The survey results show that respondents use smartphones/mobile phones most heavily while commuting to school or office in the morning and that the peak of digital media usage in the evening comes after the peak of TV viewing. As to the overall media use, it is found that the largest amount of time is spent on real-time TV viewing but young people spend as much time on social media, online videos, and games as on TV viewing. Looking at specific occasions in daily lives, we can see men in their 20s use various media such as social media, music, games, and news on smartphones or mobile phones while commuting to school or office in the morning. While teenagers watch television at suppertime, they spent much time on smartphones/mobile phones at night, with male teenagers notably using them for games. As these results show, smartphones and mobile phones have become part of young people’s everyday lives and are increasing their presence as a must-have device for them.