Which is a more "life-oriented information tool", a newspaper or a mobile phone (released in 2022)?

With the diversification of information distribution media, especially the development of digital technology related to the Internet, the relative value of paper media is declining, and demand is gradually declining. In addition, there are many opportunities to expose the actual situation of aging and metal fatigue within the industry that produces the content to be put on the medium, and as a result, the value is further reduced. Then, is the newspaper, which is said to be indispensable as a daily necessities even for low-income groups, really a necessary item nowadays? Announced in February 2022 by the Statistics Bureau of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, along with mobile phones (mobile phones, which mean both conventional mobile phones and smartphones; the same applies hereinafter), which are now essential items for daily life as a tool for acquiring content in the same way. We will confirm the current situation based on various data of the 2021 average preliminary report in the household survey report (household income and expenditure).

The following is a pensioner household with no workers other than the entire household with two or more people (workers (workers, not unemployed, but not other officers, self-employed or freelancers)). Since the pension is included in the income, it is not non-income. The withdrawal of savings is not the income).) Changes in the annual household income of the newspaper subscription rate and mobile telephone communication fee payment rate by household. In addition, the amount paid by the subscribing / paying households was also calculated. In this case, the calculation is based on the premise that "households paying newspaper subscription fees purchase on a monthly basis" and "households paying mobile phone communication charges own mobile phones." In addition, it is impossible to scrutinize single-person households because there is no data.

First of all, regarding the payment rate, that is, the actual penetration rate, newspapers have a higher penetration rate in households with low annual income (the highest is in the group of 2.5 to less than 3 million yen). However, if it is limited to 10 million yen or more, it can be seen that households with high annual income tend to have higher incomes. If there is a group that exceeds 100%, it means that there are two or more copies per household in calculation, or there are households that purchase periodically in a single shot other than monthly. However, no such example could be confirmed in 2021. On the other hand, the penetration rate of mobile phones is low for households with low annual income, but the difference is only about 20 percentage points at most, except for households with less than 2 million yen.

The amount paid by households is almost constant in newspapers. This is not surprising given that there is not much difference in monthly charges per paper, and that many purchasing households subscribe to one paper. On the other hand, the cost of mobile phones varies greatly depending on how they are used, the number of units owned in the household changes depending on the household composition such as having or not having children, and the charge depends on the type of mobile phone used (conventional mobile phone or smartphone). Because there is a big difference in the amount of money, the amount of money will increase for households with higher annual income.

Looking only at this result, it can be judged that the claim that "newspapers are indispensable for acquiring contents and information in low-income households" is not wrong. However, households with two or more people have no employment income other than working households and probably include households (pensioners) who live by withdrawing pensions and savings, and pensioners have low annual household income. However, it is necessary to consider that there is a large difference between the actual lifestyle and the annual household income at face value compared to the working household, because not a small amount of living expenses are allocated by reversing assets.

Therefore, the following figure reconstructs the above graph only for working households, which can exclude substantive pensioner households.

The trend of spending amount of user households has not changed so much, newspapers are almost constant, and mobile phones increase as households with higher incomes. However, in households with low annual income, the value is rather high, and it seems that they are overwhelmed by the sentence. The usage information (usage) by household annual income in the households that use it does not change so much even if it is limited to working households. On the other hand, although the payment rate = penetration rate is partially irregular, newspapers are probably higher for households with higher annual incomes, and mobile phones do not differ much depending on household income. It is low in households with a price of 2 to 2.5 million yen.

In other words, as far as the active working class is concerned, it can be inferred that "necessities for daily life in low-income households" are mobile phones rather than newspapers if there is a choice between newspapers and mobile phones, and newspapers are a low priority. And if you calculate backwards, it is the non-working households, roughly the elderly pension households, that are pushing the newspaper to the position of "necessities for living in low-income households" in households with two or more people. (There can be no pensioners in the younger generation).

In fact, if you re-divide by age group of the head of household, you will get exactly the same result.

The newspaper payment rate = penetration rate increases with the age of the head of household. On the other hand, the number of mobile phones declines slightly after the age of 70, but it remains in the 90% range until the age of 60. In terms of whether or not it has spread to a wide range of households, mobile phones are far superior.

It should be noted that the usage charges for mobile phone users in elderly households have dropped significantly. This is due to the fact that many people are using conventional mobile phones, which are cheaper to use, rather than smartphones. Another factor is that the number of household members is small (in many cases, there are no children in the same household).

Of course, newspapers and mobile phones are in the same position as "tools for acquiring content and information", but strictly speaking, the former covers the industries and companies that create the content itself, while mobile phones are. It is a pure infrastructure to the last, and the content delivered in the form of riding on that infrastructure is not included in the story related to the penetration rate as in this case. It is a little unreasonable to compare in the same dimension.

However, it is also a fact that the two are often compared in terms of money and media theory. It must be a fact that makes us think about what tools for communicating information are widespread, especially for those who are having difficulty in terms of household income.

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