Forum - View topicAnswerman - Why Is It Unusual For Japanese People To Use Computers?
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6145 |
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I would think Snoop Dogg would disagree 
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Ushio
Posts: 635 |
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Hah funny you should say that, My place of work has just had a few new hires who have never used a windows PC before, Mac's in school and college and smartphones for themselves never having ever owned a PC themselves. This is in the UK so I think it's not just Japan that's going to have problems with computer literacy especially as they allow you to email everything in school now and from what one of my teacher relatives says they are seeing more essays and other work that's clearly been done on phones. |
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5901 Location: Virginia, United States |
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Recently, I have had to send emails via my smart phone. It is no fun. I much prefer to use a computer to do that and to type up work documents. Tablets and smart phones are no replacement for a computer. Though tablets do have a place in some types of jobs. I pity students who are using their smart phones to type of school essays. |
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varmintx
 Posts: 1217 Location: Covington, KY |
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I think everyone saw Serial Experiments Lain and ran screaming from them.
...is it too late in the thread for this lame joke? I would have posted sooner, but I was away from my computer all day. 
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Sparvid
Posts: 240 |
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Huh, I hadn't thought about it, but maybe this explains why I've gotten the impression that after English language teachers, the most common occupation among English-speaking foreigners in Japan seems to revolve around computers (programming, bug-fixing, etc).
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AnimeLordLuis
 Posts: 1626 Location: The Borderlands of Pandora |
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WOW I never knew that Japan was so far behind when it came to computers, Which is such a shame since they're never know the Joy of using Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator or Indesign.
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Aphasial
Exempt from Grammar Rules
Posts: 122 Location: San Diego, CA |
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I was kind of wondering about that too. I remember watching Lain circa 2001 or so and thinking that it absolutely PERFECTLY captured the mystery and seemingly-infinite possibilities the Internet seemed to promise circa 1997-1998 (that was when I discovered IRC / #EFnet for the first time, and it seemed close enough to the Wired for me...). #KidsToday really don't have much memory of the pre-Social Media, pre-YouTube, pre-pervasive-Internet world, and a lot of folks in the coasts barely remember life before smart phones, and perhaps by taking it slowly Japan is at a disadvantage, but I think there's also something to be had by not needing to use technology the same way to function and survive as a culture and economy. Makes me want to visit Japan that much more. One question though -- how did the rise of NEETs in the later 2000's, and the Asian economic collapse of the late 90's/early 2000's come into play here? Any relation? |
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Galap
Moderator
 Posts: 2354 |
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huh, that's really interesting. I'd always chalked it up to the writers having been kids in the 90s when this was more likely to be the case.
When I see high school kids with smart phones and stuff like that sometimes I'm surprised and think, "woah, we didn't have those when i was in school!" as if I expect the kids of today to be using the same level of technology that I did when I was there, but of course that's not how it works. |
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dormcat
Encyclopedia Editor
 Posts: 9902 Location: New Taipei City, Taiwan, ROC |
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Ah, Adobe. I still remember the day almost two decades ago when many Adobe users still worshiped Apple for its native graphical interface (many tasks of Windows 95 still required command line) and more integrated relationship with Adobe (ever heard of the relationship between Arial and Helvetica fonts?). While such opinion has become less and less common after the introduction of Windows XP and virtually gone after Apple dumped PowerPC structure, many graphical designers today still praise Apple for its color management. IIRC Apple has a higher share of market in desktop and laptop computers (regardless of pre- or post- iMac era) in Japan than any other developed country. The reason is partly cultural: Japanese customers prefer a tool to be ready-to-use straight out of the box, thus English-based (although DOS/V is compatible with Japanese fonts, operating it still requires some basic English knowledge, and we all know that English language education in Japan fails really big) command line interface of DOS was intimidating for average Japanese users. Macs (even the original Macintosh with a tiny B/W screen) was much user-friendly than Wintel PC back then, and the growing bubble economy back then also enabled Japanese users to afford more expensive Apple over Wintel. |
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FukuchiChiisaia
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Meanwhile, in Indonesia, 5th grader already learning how to use CorelDRAW.
And Photoshop when I was 6th grade. We learn also learn HTML, JavaScript, CSS, and Indesign on high school. |
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#857240
Posts: 1 |
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I live in Israel and its nothing new.5 years-6 years ago people would barely use them.now that we have all the conviniency of smartphones - even less people use them.
The only ones who actually know how to use comps here are hardcore gamers and developers.the only reason people know how to use comps is literally coding.I already know peole who developed amazing stuff but never written a simple document in Microsoft office.sad,true but cool. |
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Agent355
 Posts: 5113 Location: Crackberry in hand, thumbs at the ready... |
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That's really interesting, and also makes me feel almost better about my own very basic tech (il)literacy.
And CV/resumes have to be hand written, too? Thinking about it, I can't recall spotting a computer in the Mastuno sextuplets house. Maybe they all have really bad handwriting, and that's why they can't get a job! (Except for Todomatsu. Does Starbucks require resumes?) 
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Heh, kind of reminds me of how an uncle of mine gave me a PC as a gift back in 1999 or so. Although he works in the communications business, it was weird how bare-bones it was. It came full of edutainment games, and Corel PhotoImpact, but everything else that could possibly be optional, he turned down. I don't know if Microsoft Office came standard in computers, but I was the only one among my classmates who had a PC and didn't have Office. We weren't given a printer with it either. At the time, it seemed as if he figured kids use computers only to play games, and if it's from him, it might as well be educational.
Also, I guess there's some truth to that scene in the Digimon movie where Tai and Izzy find an online computer at a barbershop, and the barber says he just uses it to play Solitaire.
Yeah, it really does to me too. That was the thing that caught my attention the most in that article. Computer literacy has become prevalent even in third-world countries, so it seems weird that Japanese youth are becoming less able to use computers.
To be fair, typewriters still have the edge over printers when it comes to typing in information within paper forms, and I know banks are a place where there can be many paper forms to fill in.
In Chinese schools, penmanship has always been very important and is a traditional skill to be practiced every day and is a measure of character. As kanji is a direct offshoot of Chinese, I'm pretty certain the same mindset occurs in Japanese schools too, though maybe not that extreme.
Now that makes me wonder what a printing press at a newspaper company looked like, as they would've had to have a separate metal stamp for each of those characters.
And w's! wwwww
Confusion between "lose" and "loose" still happens way up at the professional levels. 
It's not even the most commonly confused set of words. I'd say it's "their," "they're," and "there."
I like to pay with cash wherever possible because cash is the most anonymous form of payment and thus the most secure. I'm guessing that isn't the reason why people in Japan most commonly prefer paying with cash though. |
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Tempest_Wing
Posts: 305 |
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Serial Experiments Lain makes a WHOLE lot more sense now.
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Alan45
 Village Elder Posts: 9922 Location: Virginia |
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leafy sea dragon wrote:
Only if they absolutely insist on using pre-printed forms. If the form is set up in the computer as a template you can move from field to field filling in the blanks. Then if a hard copy is absolutely required they can print out the form and the responses at the same time. I remember trying to type my income tax return on the forms provided. Getting the type just on the line required a lot of adjustment. It took practice and even then was a major hassle. I'm perfectly willing to buy tax preparation software every year to avoid that. |
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So that's what writing manufacturers in Japan call "a typewriter"... Those buttons are so small my fingers would end up many of the buttons surrounding the one I want to press.  |
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