Japan, the land without PCs or wristwatches
PCs Being Pushed Aside in Japan
Associated Press Sunday, Nov. 4, 2007…The PC’s role in Japanese homes is diminishing, as its once-awesome monopoly on processing power is encroached by gadgets such as smart phones that act like pocket-size computers, advanced Internet-connected game consoles, digital video recorders with terabytes of memory….
…Japan’s PC market is already shrinking, leading analysts to wonder whether Japan will become the first major market to see a decline in personal computer use some 25 years after it revolutionized household electronics…
San Francisco Chronicle, USA - Nov 4, 2007….A survey by Seiko Watches in Japan concluded that the number of people there between the ages of 16 and 49 wearing wristwatches fell from 70 percent in 1997 to 46 percent in 2006….
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November 6th, 2007 at 7:53 am
Interesting read. Keep up the updates.
November 6th, 2007 at 9:07 am
I haven’t consistently worn a wrist watch for years. It scratched up my laptop, and it’s annoying when I use a desktop. Cell phone usage is up so I just use my cell phone to check the time. Now days I wear my watch when I go out as more of an accessory.
November 6th, 2007 at 3:44 pm
Gee thanks for your comments folks! I am surprised anyone commented since most of the content this post was deleted because of a database error on the 3Yen’s server that erased my long-winded commentary on this entire trend.
Basically, what I wrote about Japanese on the whole worship their keitai/cellphones and much prefer them to PCs or watches. Watches have lost all meaning as fashion accessory in Japan and are seen now more as something that just gets in the way as you mentioned. Hey come to think of it, I haven’t seen any young girl (or guy for that matter) wearing a wristwatch on a date in a very long time.
The home personal computer in Japan was never ensconced as an icon of necessity. Until the late 1990s the Japanese government did its best to make the Internet painfully expensive all connections had to pay the toll by the minute to the quasi telecom monopoly NTT. Back in the bad-old-days any of my friends might mistakenly might try to download a video via modem and end up phone bill of hundreds of dollars for maintaining a connection all night. At the same, texting on a Japanese cellphone was cheaper and faster for Japanese input, hence Japanese grew more dependent on cell phones rather than personal computers (which are viewed more as a tool for work).
November 6th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
I used to wear a watch but I found it to be more of a distraction. Plus, mobile phones have clocks that are synchronized automatically.
November 6th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Yep, that’s the idea smart Japanese have about their keitai/cellphones—It’s an alarm clock that won’t ring on the weekends and holidays. Sales of alarm clocks as well as wristwatches have also plummeted in punctuality obsessed Japan.
November 6th, 2007 at 7:01 pm
“43% of Japanese use their cell phone as an alarm” - I can believe it. It’s convenient and you can basically sleep anywhere. Cell phones are great because you have internet, phone, text, alarm, clock, mine has a world clock, notepad or todo list, and a decent camera. It solves the need for a few things definitely.
November 9th, 2007 at 3:55 am
Hi
As recently as 2001, most of my English students (I taught for NOVA in 2001 to 2002) used their cell phones for email more than an at home type of PC or laptop computer.