56.6 Pct of 20-Year-Olds Express Hope for Japan’s Politics

Tokyo, Jan. 10 (Jiji Press)–More than half of people celebrating their coming-of-age ceremonies this year in Japan said they have expectations for the country’s politics, according to an online survey. The proportion of respondents who have expressed expectations for Japanese politics stood at 56.6 pct, up about 2.7-fold from the previous year, according to the survey by market research firm Macromill Inc. The survey, which covered 500 people who turn 20 this school year, was conducted in December last year ahead of their Coming-of-Age Day on Monday. In the survey, 45.2 pct said they think that the future of Japan is bright, citing reasons, including expectations for the new administration of Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. “I think it has become clear that they view social changes positively,” an official of the research firm said. The survey also showed that the use of generative artificial intelligence for searching on smartphones is rapidly expanding, particularly ChatGPT, as a tool for smartphone searches. With multiple answers allowed, the share of respondents who said they use Google for smartphone searches came to 87.5 pct. The figure for ChatGPT stood at 62.3 pct, almost doubling from the previous year and exceeding 61.1 pct for YouTube. The most common frequency of using generative AI was “several days a week,” at 30.0 pct, followed by “almost every day,” at 25.6 pct, and “once a week,” at 11.6 pct. END [Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]