The Institute for Information and Communications Policy, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications has conducted a "Usage Time of Information and Communications Media and Information Behavior 2020" as a joint research project with Professor Yoshiaki Hashimoto and others at the Faculty of Contemporary Liberal Arts, Tokyo Woman's Christian University; they have also compiled a report published on August 25. The survey is conducted every year, and this was the ninth time it has been completed. It involved 1,500 men and women aged between 13 and 69 in Japan from January 12 to 18, 2021.
The survey examined the average time of use for each type of media and found that the long-term trends of "watching TV (real-time)" and "using the Internet" continued on both weekdays and holidays in all age groups and that the average time of "using the Internet" on weekdays exceeded "watching TV (real-time)" in all age groups for the first time. The average use time on weekdays for all age groups was 168.4 minutes for the Internet, the highest among all media, followed by 163.2 minutes for TV (real-time). However, TV had an additional 20.2 minutes of viewing record footage. In addition, on holidays, Internet usage time was 174.9 minutes, while TV (real-time) continued to have the longest viewing times at 223.3 minutes. Watching recorded TV footage was at 39.6 minutes. Over the past nine years, television use has gradually become shorter while Internet use has doubled.
In terms of other media, newspapers were read for 8.5 minutes on weekdays and 8.3 minutes on holidays, while radio was listened to for 13.4 minutes on weekdays and 7.6 minutes on holidays. Newspapers and radio use has decreased slightly compared to when these surveys started nine years ago. Moreover, the average Internet use time has increased in all age groups on both weekdays and holidays, especially among teens and those in their 20s. TV (real-time) viewing increased with age, greatly exceeding 300 minutes on holidays for persons in their 60s.
Considering Internet use time by item, the longest time was spent on "reading and writing emails" on weekdays at 40.8 minutes for all age groups. "Watch video posting and sharing services" was the highest on holidays at 58.0 minutes. By age group, "Watching video posting and sharing services" on holidays among teens and "Looking at and updating social media" and "Watching videos and using sharing services" on holidays among persons in their 20s were all over 100 minutes.
In terms of the Internet use time by main device and activity rate (percentage of people surveyed who performed these behaviors per day) on both weekdays and holidays, the average time spent using the Internet with a mobile device was high among teens and persons in their 20s, and the average time spent on holidays exceeded 200 minutes. The activity rate of Internet use with a mobile device exceeded 90% for persons in their 20s and 30s on weekdays and for those in their 20s on holidays. Looking at the rate of use with smartphones, feature phones, tablet devices, e-book readers, and smartwatches, it increased for smartphones from 91.1% in the previous year to 92.7% for all ages and has consistently increased since the surveys began. The use rate for smartphones exceeded 90% in all groups, from teens up to those in their 40s. It also consistently increased for people in their 50s and 60s, exceeding 80% even for those in their 60s.
This article has been translated by JST with permission from The Science News Ltd.(https://sci-news.co.jp/). Unauthorized reproduction of the article and photographs is prohibited.