Cyber Behavior and its Impact in Japan
With the rapid growth of Internet in Japan, many researches have examined whether Internet use affects social behavior on daily life positively or negatively. Early seminal researches in Japan demonstrated that the negative effects of the Internet are not universal, but such effects are dependent on the circumstances and on how the Internet is utilized by each user. Recent studies have been focusing on various activities on the Internet analyzing “what kind of user is using the Internet for what purpose.” This chapter will introduce these studies in terms of three main characteristics of Internet users in Japan. These three characteristics are: preferences for weblog, participation in online communities, and switching to mobile Internet. At the end of this chapter, future research directions will be discussed, while introducing recently developed scales designed to measure various behaviors on the Internet from three aspects: self-expression, relationships with others, and balance with reality.