of birth," "blood type," "birthplace," and "interests and likes" and that this percentage among the middle aged and seniors was low. Conversely, a higher percentage of seniors than young adults posted such information as "phone number," "address," "real name," and "email address." A possible explanation for this tendency is that seniors post this information because they are more oriented toward one-to-one communications.

## (B) Use of real names

Social media users were surveyed about whether they used their real name, a pseudonym linked to their real-world identity, or a pseudonym not linked to their real-world identity for each social media type they used. $ ^{47} $ Real names were used by 20.9 percent of SNS users, 5.5 percent of blog users, 7.2 percent of Twitter users, 4.0 percent of Internet message board users, 17.5 percent of local SNS users, and 9.6 percent of microblogs users. Thus, a relatively high percentage of SNS and local SNS users reveal their real name. Pseudonyms not linked to their real-world identity were used by 68.4 percent of Internet message board users, a particularly high percentage, and by more than half of blog and Twitter users.

By generation, seniors were the most likely to use either their real name or a pseudonym linked to their real-world identity and the least likely to use a pseudonym not linked to their real-world identity.

### D. Internet and real-world awareness and behavior

Social media users were asked about differences in awareness and behavior between the Internet and the real world. The results, in one sense, held that there were differences in awareness and behavior, such as “it is easier to break off an Internet-based relationship than a real-world relationship” (63.6 percent), “I can be more forthcoming on the Internet than in the real world” (60.3 percent), and “on the Internet, it is more possible to have equal relationships, regardless of age, profession, or social standing, than in the real world” (58.3 percent). Yet other results suggested that social media users’ behavior (expressions) on the Net were governed by an awareness of their impact on their real-world self, such as “I act (or express myself) spontaneously more often on the Internet than in the real world” (48.3 percent), “I act (or express myself) on the Internet without as much thought as in the real world” (48.2 percent), and “as long as I act (or express myself) anonymously on the Internet, it has no impact on my real-world self” (24.8 percent). In particular, that only one in four people said “as long as I act (or express myself) anonymously on the Internet, it has no impact on my real-world self” means that three in four respondents were aware that their behavior (expressions) on the Internet are related to their real selves even if they act (or express themselves) anonymously.

## Section 3

## Expectations for a Symbiotic Networked Society

### 1. Changes brought about by the penetration of social media into people's lifestyles

So far we have learned that the young-adult segment is driving the utilization of social media and that people use social media for many different purposes. It is also evident that social media is used as a tool to enable interpersonal collaborations, solve problems, resolve personal concerns and problems, and to enable interpersonal support.

This section examines the prospects of future communication and broadcast networks and their environments. As stated in Section 1, as ICT naturally integrates into society, a ubiquitous computing environment is coming into being that joins people to people, people to machines, and machines to machines in N-to-N relationships. It is conceivable that in the near future an advanced ubiquitous networked society will form with even stronger connections between real space and cyberspace because of the prevalence of M2M communications and because all devices will be connected to the Internet. It is also imaginable that broadcast networks based on 1-to-N communications, communication networks based on 1-to-1 communications, and social media based on N-to-N communications will merge in an organic, complementary fashion and that an environment will form in which networks and devices can freely associate according to each user's needs while taking advantage of the strengths of each network and media.

As for future changes in ICT usage, we will likely see the rapid advancement of ICT usage in which the user, and not the supplier, is the main entity; for example, development of products and services through the wisdom of crowds. And while a movement to share goods, services, and information is growing, ICT is apt to spur on this movement with its mediation and matching functionality. $ ^{48} $