Silviase/jgov_v1.4_full_ann huggingface dataset:
their daily lives in which they used the Internet most. Responses were limited to such areas as gathering information personally, implying the need for further permeation of the Internet into other areas of daily life.

## 3 Shopping

One area of e-commerce that generated intense interest in 2000 was auction sites on which individual Internet users could buy and sell items from and to one another. When a web survey asked why they participate in online auctions, many users responded that they used the sites in an attempt to buy or sell things not usually available through ordinary retail.

Operators of auction sites attempt to run trouble-free auctions, but there are inevitably people who try to swindle others or sell illegal goods. Various means of monitoring products that appear on auction sites, providing escrow services, and authenticating the identity of participants are being developed.

## Pastimes and entertainment

Online computer games generated much interest during 2000 among the millions of people who play computer games, now an integral means of entertainment in their daily lives. Online games are already well established as a major subset of Internet content in the U.S. and Republic of Korea, and such games are expected to become a significant part of Japan's game culture in the near future. Other areas in the entertainment category have come under greater critical scrutiny, however. The prime example is peer-to-peer exchanges of music files, which many consider a violation of copyright.

## 5 Healthcare and social services

As Japan’s society rapidly ages, the healthcare and social-service sectors are seeking ways to use information and communications technology effectively to provide support for medical facilities and the elderly and develop ways to deliver social services more efficiently and effectively.

## 6 Work

Teleworking and the use of satellite offices/home offices (SOHO) are gradually becoming more common in Japan as alternative modes of work. About 70% of both males and females responding to an online survey indicated a desire to engage in telework sometime in the future. The MPHPT and the Japan SOHO Association are working to compile an online SOHO Directory of people who work at home or satellite offices and the types of work that they do, in an effort to link these people with those who need such work performed. The MPHPT plans to verify the effectiveness and technological potential of the SOHO Directory system.

## I nformation intensification in community life

It is hoped that creating and effectively using advanced information and communications networks will go a long way toward solving issues that communities around Japan are
confronting, including the aging of the population, depopulation of rural areas, and the need for local economic revitalization. Private-sector and educational organizations, mainly at the local level, are cooperating to undertake various measures, such as information and communications infrastructure development and effective use of the Internet, to promote the creation of active, distinctive local communities.
## Seizing Digital Opportunity

## Regional differences in Internet use

A mail-in survey indicates that the major metropolitan areas are not necessarily taking the lead in Internet usage. For example, while the southern Kanto and Kinki regions (which are essentially metropolitan areas) have higher proportions of people who access the Internet via household PCs (including notebook PCs) than in other regions, the proportion of people who access the Internet via cell phone and PHS is higher in the more-rural Hokuriku region than in the southern Kanto region (Exhibit 26-1). Among cities as well, a greater proportion of respondents living in government-designated cities and Tokyo's wards access the Internet via PC than in other cities; towns and villages, but the relative proportions are less than other cities for Internet access via cell phone (Exhibit 26-2). Possible factors behind these differentials are that cell phones are less expensive than PCs and are easier to use.

## Differences in Internet use according to personal characteristics

Internet usage varies with occupation, with the unemployed using it the least and a large proportion of students and employed people logging on (Exhibit 27-1). A considerably smaller proportion of elderly people use the Internet than do people in their 20s (Exhibit 27-2). Students and people in their teens and 20s use cell phones more than they do PCs to access the Internet. Internet usage tends to be directly proportional to annual household income. However, once annual household income reaches ¥6 million, the rate of Internet usage via cell phone turns virtually constant (Exhibit 27-3).

## 3 Popularizing the Internet

A statistical analysis of the survey data cited above indicates that three characteristics—age, annual household income, and occupation—are strongly correlated with Internet use, whereas sex and geographic characteristics (city size, region) are relatively weakly correlated (Exhibit 28). A more-detailed analysis reveals that characteristics associated with “elderly-related” characteristics—being in one’s 60s or one’s 70s or older, and having low annual income—are correlated with the lowest rate in Internet usage while “student-related” characteristics, such as being a student and being in one’s teens, are predictive of a high rate of Internet usage.

According to one survey, the main reasons cited by respondents for not using the Internet are that they have no incentive for trying out the Internet and that there are impediments that prevent them from using the necessary equipment. The strongest inducement to usage, judging from the