Page 291 - Culture Technology Communication

274 Robert J. Fouser

Table 2
Nomura Survey on Attitudes toward Non-Internet
Communication Technologies
Fax Machine in Household
Japan Korea US
20.2% 3.6% 17.0%
Mobile Phone Use
Japan Korea US
Use Personally 35.7% 16.2% 32.4%
Used in Household 25.3% 23.2% 5.6%
Note: The above figures exclude “none-of-above” responses. Figures for mobile phones exclude
those who do not have one in their household.

This contrasts with English and Korean, both alphabet languages,
in which the typed letters enter the text as they are typed. Results
from the Nomura survey show that Japan has the lowest level of
keyboard literacy of the four nations surveyed. According to the sur-
vey (Table 3), only 6.2% of Japanese said that they could type fast
without looking at their fingers, whereas 29.8% of Americans could
do so, and 16.8% of Koreans. The figures for those who could type
fast while looking at their fingers was 17.5% in Japan, 24.6% in the
United States, and 14.8% in Korea. Thus, only 23.7% of Japanese
can type fast, whereas 54.4% of Americans could type fast and 31.6%
of Koreans could type fast. The question on length of computer use
also yields interesting results. As expected, Americans have the
longest experience using computers: 42% have used computers for
more than four years, whereas 20.8% in Japan, roughly the same
number that can type fast, and 12.2% in Korea have used computer
for more than four years. In Japan, 50.8% have never used comput-
ers, which contrasts greatly with the figure of 21.8% in the United
States. In Korea, despite a lower per capita income than Japan, 49%
of respondents said that they had never used a computer.
In a survey of Internet users in Korea, Yang (1996) found that
perceptions of complexity, either of the computer itself or the Inter-
net, had the greatest influence on user attitudes toward the Inter-
net. Not surprisingly, users who viewed computers and the Internet
as complicated had negative attitudes, whereas those who are fa-
miliar with computers and perceive going on-line as easy had posi-
tive feelings toward the Internet. In the future, voice recognition
software may allow Japanese computer users to input words rapidly