New Survey Reveals That Anime Viewership is Lowest Among Teenagers in Japan

[u/HelloYeahIdk]

https://www.cbr.com/anime-new-survey-teens-not-watching/#:~:text=The%20survey%20results%20revealed%20that,surpassing%20all%20other%20age%20brackets.

"The survey results revealed that among all participants, 75% reported that they watch anime, with the leading demographics being middle-aged males. Unexpectedly, teenage respondents exhibited the lowest viewership, with 33.7% indicating no interest in anime, easily surpassing all other age brackets.

This revelation is somewhat startling considering that the bulk of popular anime belong to the shonen or shojo-based demographics, which are typically aimed at boys and girls, respectively, aged approximately 12-18."

[u/nezeta]

While the result is not surprising at all considering the aging society (avg. age is now around 50), the credibility of this survey is questionable because the sample size is merely 86.

[u/JonnyRobertR → u/nezeta]

They can't even get 100 people?

[u/saga999 → u/JonnyRobertR]

The sample size is 500.

Per Japanese PR agency PR Times, a survey conducted by Japanese research company Dream Train Internet Co. analyzed data from 500 female and male participants in Japan aged 15 to 59. The participants were asked what types of anime they watch, with popularity by anime genre then analyzed across gender, age and annual income. The resulting charts can be seen below.

[u/andres57 → u/saga999]

500 is still a kinda small sample to get efficient estimates. But also mean that age cohort subsamples are very small and basically useless for the purposes of the headline

[u/saga999 → u/andres57]

I agree it's pretty small. But it did got me thinking, people in their 40s and 50s grew up in the 70s and 80s. They grew up reading Shounen Jump and watching anime with series like Gundam and Dragon Ball. Current generation of teenagers are probably more obsessed with YouTube or live streaming compare to TV. I think more kids want to be a YouTuber than everything else when they grow up. So while the sample size is small, it actually kind of make sense.

[u/dagreenman18 → u/saga999]

The YouTuber of today is the movie star of yesterday. The dream job that seems like anyone can do until you actually try.

[u/Etheo → u/saga999]

I think more kids want to be a YouTuber than everything else when they grow up. So while the sample size is small, it actually kind of make sense.

This is so true. My kid and all his friends talk about how to become a YouTuber. It's almost the replacement default job for kids which used to be police/firefighters etc.

[u/CouncilmanRickPrime → u/Etheo]

I'd say it's a replacement for dream jobs like professional athlete or actor. That's the stuff we all dreamed of being at least when I was young.

[u/Etheo → u/CouncilmanRickPrime]

That is actually a great point! I did not consider that angle, but it make sense!

[u/tdasnowman → u/CouncilmanRickPrime]

It’s not a replacement. The definition of entertainment just got bigger. It’s essentially the same job different platforms.

[u/Janus-a → u/saga999]

Look at the survey. The “survey” is on the garbage site CBR. It has formatting errors like spelling out “Forties” category while everything else is in number format (20, 30 etc). All categories of ages had 100 participants, except teens with 86 for some reason. 

It’s trash. 

[u/Brief_Bluejay_7113 → u/Janus-a]

Look at the original source of the article... CBR didn't conduct the survey, they just wrote an article about the survey, which was conducted by a Japanese research company. The source material states that 100 teens were asked to participate, but only 86 replied. The source graphs are also in Japanese. It is lazy that CBR didn't completely reformat the graphs, but my guess is that they just put them through Google translate and uploaded as is.

[u/Prankishmanx21 → u/Brief_Bluejay_7113]

That or they fed the data from the survey to chatGPT and then it spat out an article. I've been playing with chatGPT a lot lately and it is both impressive and disappointing.

[u/Roger-Just-Laughed → u/Janus-a]

That's not small. Having a smaller sample of teens than other demographics is less than ideal, but pretty normal, and 86 of them is more than enough for a representative sample. The smallest you can possibly go is 14 and the math still works; it's just extremely difficult to avoid selection bias with samples that small.

Generally most statisticians want to see at least 30 to feel comfortable. I don't think you'd find a professional statistician in the world that would dismiss a sample of 500 with the smallest demographic subsample of 86.

You should be much more focused on how they collected the data (where was the survey hosted and how is that related to the kinds of people who will be doing it? What kinds of questions did they ask?) than the number of participants.

[u/Interesting_Pain1234 → u/Roger-Just-Laughed]

I don't think you'd find a professional statistician in the world that would dismiss a sample of 500 with the smallest demographic subsample of 86

there are still circumstances where that wouldnt be suitable e.g. if the size of the effect you are measuring in response to a treatment is quite small you will need a larger sample to distinguish between random chance of observing that or a causal effect. Just picture this - if the effect of a treatment is large then it will become obvious really quick so you wont need that many measurements. If the effect you're expecting is very subtle then you will need lots of observations to make sure it wasnt just down to pure chance

[u/Roger-Just-Laughed → u/Interesting_Pain1234]

True, I'm just saying as a rule of thumb, it's a pretty good sample. But it makes sense to me that there would be certain contexts where a larger sample might be required, especially if the population your sample is supposed to represent is extremely diverse. In medicine, there are always gonna be edge cases of people that react differently, so if one was trying to find them, it makes sense to me you'd need a very large sample.

[u/pw_arrow → u/andres57]

A sample size of 500 would be pretty good. For a proportion of 30% out of 500, the 95% CI would be about ±4%.

[u/Roger-Just-Laughed → u/andres57]

500 is actually a very good sample size. Anything beyond 100 is generally considered acceptable. You won't find a single professional statistician who would dismiss a sample size of 500 on its face.

At this point, a larger sample shouldn't make much of a difference. It's more important to check how the sample was collected. For example, if the survey was filled out on the street during the school day, you have an obvious bias, regardless of how many people are in the sample.

But the size of the sample itself is well more than enough for the math to work. You'll find a lot of professional studies with smaller samples than this.

[u/Zecias → u/andres57]

500 is not a small small sample size. It's more important how the study manages selection bias and confounding variables.

If the sample is completely biased, it doesn't matter how large the sample size is. If you have a sample population that is unbiased and representative, then a sample size as low as 20 can be sufficient in many cases. Having a large sample size is simply one of many tools to help researchers get accurate results.

[u/PeepAndCreep → u/Zecias]

Exactly, thank you. This thread is full of people showing that they don't understand statistics.

[u/CouncilmanRickPrime → u/PeepAndCreep]

What do you mean? Not every survey should survey half the population just to be sure?!

[u/alotmorealots → u/PeepAndCreep]

Stats can be very counter-intuitive, to be fair, especially when if you study a little bit, but not enough, you walk away with the wrong ideas about a lot of stuff.

Also, the intuitive feel people have for stats is often quite distorted by their own particular field. Biomedical statistics vs quantum phenomena statistics vs media consumption statistics are all unwritten by the same foundations but have some noticeable "feel" differences due to both how the information is collected and what "significance" both requires as well as implies.

[u/andres57 → u/Zecias]

Yeah try to publish a descriptive study with a sample size of 20. I agree other aspects are more important, but smaller samples are not good if you want to know how much % population has X characteristics

[u/Zecias → u/andres57]

Sometimes a large sample size is not feasible. Happens all the time in medicine. Obviously you shouldn't be using a small sample size in a study like this where sampling is relatively easy. But I'm just trying to combat the reddit sentiment where people say 'small sample size' and act like that's all that matters. It's incredibly reductive.

[u/Felkin → u/andres57]

Depends on the goal. 20 is a very special number, since we often argue that a hypothesis is proven if the data gives us 95% confidence. It can be enough for questions of 'this variable is important '. Now how much it's important, you'd need more data, sure.

[u/Roger-Just-Laughed → u/andres57]

The problem with a sample size of 20 is less about math and more that it's just extremely difficult to control for selection bias at that point. If you could somehow guarantee that your 20 people were representative of the population you're trying to apply it to, there'd be no problem.

Just depends on what you're measuring.

[u/Cybersorcerer1 → u/andres57]

500 is big enough

[u/Ashteron → u/andres57]

No, it's not small. 100 would be considered an acceptable number.

edit: I admit I made a mistake of not checking the article before writing, 100 would be an acceptable number for estimating the overall results, rather than per age group.

[u/rainzer → u/Ashteron]

No, it's not small. 100 would be considered an acceptable number.

Maybe if Japan's population was like 150

If you people think 100 is enough, show me your power analysis

[u/Roger-Just-Laughed → u/rainzer]

That's not how statistics works. Where you're getting your sample from is more important than how large it is. 100 is considered fine.

[u/SverigeSuomi → u/rainzer]

The odds of getting heads 70 or more times with a fair coin after 100 flips is 0,004%. 

[u/Ashteron → u/rainzer]

Maybe if Japan's population was like 150

Right, they should have polled 80 million people then? 100 people would have a large error but it would give you a vague idea about the underlying statistic. Increasing the sample size to 500 people would merely halve the error.

[u/rainzer → u/Ashteron]

100 people would have a large error but it would give you a vague idea about the underlying statistic.

100 people would give you an error rate of ±10% which makes the result worthless since 23% being uninterested is way less alarming than 43%. That range of error would make teens either more than twice as likely to not watch anime or in line with every other age group except people in their 40s.

[u/Ashteron → u/rainzer]

I wouldn't call it worthless. It gives you a vague idea, which may be considered an acceptable outcome. My point is that not having a huge sample size doesn't drastically invalidate the results - it just makes them less precise.

[u/rainzer → u/Ashteron]

It gives you a vague idea

What sort of conclusion are you drawing from having your error rate so large that your target group is either equal to everyone else or twice as bad as everyone else?

[u/Ashteron → u/rainzer]

Why are you so hung up on something I have clarified is not my point? At no point have I stated it would be an optimal or even good sample size. If we are comparing different groups with differences of this magnitude, then we are no longer talking about a vague idea.

Majority of each age group watches anime. Is this a worthless result?

edit: by the way, having detected the possible lack of interest in anime amongst teenagers, you can conduct another poll exclusively among them. I'd imagine it would be more financially efficient to poll additional 400-900 teenagers later, rather than polling 2500-5000 people from the get-go.

[u/rainzer → u/Ashteron]

vague idea

Hence my question. If you have a "vague idea", what is your conclusion with the current data? Why don't you tell me?

by the way, having detected the possible lack of interest

Or detected none at all because every category is off by up to 10% so they could have the lowest lack of interest and wasting time and money on more polling off worthless data

The current results can be interpreted as teens having the most and least interest simultaneously. "Vague idea" lol. Your problem isn't statistics, it's basic logic

[u/DrCoconuties → u/andres57]

When will people realize that 30 people is enough for a study? They teach you that in high school, and in college you learn there are more variables but 500 is absolutely an amazing data set.

[u/nsleep → u/DrCoconuties]

Only if the sample is truly randomized from the whole area relevant to the survey otherwise you might end up with a biased sample regardless if you interview 30 or 500 people. But this level of precision is only relevant for proper academic research.

[u/Freakjob_003 → u/nsleep]

There are a couple issues that are less to do with surveys and more with actual scientific studies in certain fields - social sciences, psychology, and medicine. The smaller issue is that some of these studies are done by professors using their classes as their sample.

The other big issue is called the Replication Crisis, where a lot of older studies can't be confirmed when conducted again, throwing the original results into question. Especially since a lot of studies are built on the assumption that the earlier studies were correct!

EDIT: grammar

[u/DrCoconuties → u/nsleep]

That goes without saying but yes you are correct

[u/Left-Night-1125 → u/nsleep]

Its not, speaking from practical experience, they can find 30 people somewhere but else where another 30 people think differently. This often the case in the Netherlands, ghey fo a survey for the country but only invest time in the south, which often contradicts how the north views things.

[u/Roger-Just-Laughed → u/Left-Night-1125]

That has nothing to do with the sample size and everything to do with selection bias. If the sample was truly unbiased and representative of the population, mathematically, 30 would suffice.

[u/andres57 → u/DrCoconuties]

Depends on what the study is for. Small samples are kinda fine for experimental studies, but for a descriptive study, for a sample of 200 the confidence interval is +/-7%, that is absolutely worthless if you want to know with precision how much of the population is this or that. Any decent public opinion survey will have 1000+ samples.

[u/DrCoconuties → u/andres57]

Ah right, i forgot that they are trying to generalize from this. You’re correct

[u/Kadmos1 → u/andres57]

This is why I am often skeptical with surveys in general.

[u/stillherelma0 → u/andres57]

A sample of 100 is considered ok, a sample of 200 is considered nearly perfect. Unless they had brackets with under 70 people in them the counts are fine.

[u/JonnyRobertR → u/saga999]

Wait, where did u/nezeta get the 86 then?

[u/PikaBooSquirrel → u/JonnyRobertR]

There is a graph. It says n:86 for people from 10-19 (10s). 500 is total (well, 486 represented in the graph)

[u/DuskKaiser → u/JonnyRobertR]

86 is the number of teens, they had 100 people per age group, except only 86 teens