ABSTRACT
Contradictory Japanese attitudes towards privacy
Japan is a complicated country - even for Japanese people themselves. Indeed, their lives are full of contradictory matters, including the problems related to privacy. People want to be free and pay attention to a 'right to control one's personal information,' but at the same time they want to get 'true' friends by sharing their secret information concerning their private, personal experience. According to our recent research data (conducted in Japan, 2005), 70.6% of the respondents said 'yes' to the question, "Do you want to get 'true' friends by expressing or sharing secret information concerning your or your friends' private or personal experience such as disappointments, moments of shame, or guilty conscience?" While 75.0% of the respondents of the same research said that media should take care not to invade the privacy of the victims of crime, 66.8% said that personal information on such victims, including their occupation, human relations, personality, life history, etc., are needed in order to know the 'deep' meanings of the crime.1
