YouTube Survey Results

As you know, Carbondale is not a big city like Chicago, but I’m sure that it must be a good place to do survey. People that I asked to do the survey were so kind and very welcome to answer many questions. In news talk class, we decided to do a survey on YouTube because it has many controversial issues. We were divided into three groups; privacy, copyrights, and government control. I decided that I would do a survey about privacy because it’s becoming very controversial issue not only on YouTube, but also on every part of places in the world. Then, I wanted to know how Americans think about their privacy and how come they think about it. I distributed fifteen copies of the survey paper among members of SIUC soccer club. They were so nice to me, because no one complained to me about this huge survey. At the time that I gave survey paper to them, many people said that YouTube is so nice, and watching someone’s embarrassing scene is funny and makes them laugh. However, if they walk in victim’s shoes, they said that they will be mad, and try to sue someone who sends their pictures without their permission. I thought I also would feel that way.

After doing the survey and watching its results, I saw that 91 percents of Americans have heard of YouTube, and 76 percents of them use YouTube to watch movie clips. As a result, I found that males are much more likely to watch YouTube than females. Also, according to the survey, 92 percents of Americans have cell-phone and 76 percents of them have cell-phone cameras. Moreover, approximately 50 percents of Americans think the law should punish people who film you without your permission. In addition, Americans who think that people should be allowed to take any picture of anyone who is in public are 50 percents. Also, males are more likely to agree with taking any picture of anyone who is in public than females.

Individually, I was curious to see some questions about cell-phone camera in this survey because in Japan, we also have some serious problems of the way to use cell-phone cameras in public. When I looked at the percentage of people who have cell-phone cameras, there was nothing to surprise for me. However, when I looked at the result of the question which is that people should be allowed to take any picture of anyone who is in public, I was surprised because only around 50 percents of Americans answered “No”, which means another 50 percents of them don’t mind if they are taken their pictures secretly in public by someone. In Japan, there are some ways to protect people who are taken their pictures unconsciously by someone secretly. For example, as American cell-phone may have, when you try to take any picture by using Japanese cell-phone, your cell-phone will give sound. The sound is like alarm, so all people around you can notice who took a picture just now. I think this survey is really good because it tells us a lot of facts that people think of YouTube, but if I raise some negative points in this survey, I would point out why it did not ask how YouTube change in the future; is there still YouTube or same kinds of places where people can exchange their clips and watch movies for free after ten years? The reason why I want to know is that internet technology is improving day by day, so people’s privacy might be totally lost in the future unless improving internet technology stops. Therefore, I thought asking Americans about it would be important. Finally, after I watched results of the survey, I noticed that Many Americans are more interested in YouTube than I thought, and they think it’s very controversial. Therefore, I’ll keep my eyes on this controversial issue from now on.

RYO