spring 1986 RAIN Page 21 different meaning. “What started this was the publication of the Japanese translation by President Inc. of the book Networking which has the subtitle, “Discovering Another America.” People with common interests have ties with each other as individuals, transcending differences in occupations and in the areas where they live. “From now on society should be made into such a horizontal type of world. Pointing out that ordinary people have created a diversity of networks in the United States, the book introduces many concrete examples. “The industrialized society separated people from their home towns and villages and concentrated them in cities. People were incorporated into the vertical systems of companies and administration, and the horizontal ties between individuals were weakened. From the feeling that society will deteriorate at this rate, ties in the form of volunteer activities and citizen movements have been bom in Japan.” Those who have been silently active in various fields, including citizens' study groups, campaigns to improve living conditions for the elderly, and recycling movements, created an organization called Networking Research Society. The society held its first symposium on September 9, 1985. O O Computer Communications in Japan by Steve Johnson Japan's relation to electronic technology is curious. I had several Japanese tell me that the Japanese are uncomfortable with computers. The people worry about loss of privacy, ill health effects from working with the machines, and the generally dehumanizing effects of computerization. While the Japanese fear of computers resembles our own, and surely does not represent an ungrounded fear, the general attitude is more reminicent of the 1970s in America. Some differences might explain this point of view. In Japan, computers come in two distinct types: large computers operated by the government and corporations, and small computers to run games on. Many Japanese own the latter s type. The small computer in Japan just doesn't seem very useful. If you go into a typical computer store in Japan all you see is computer games. To the Japanese the small computer is an merely an extension of television's trival pursuits. TTiere are few serious applications for the typical small business or nonprofit organization. The possibility of computer systems leading to more centralization of power is a real threat, but Americans seem to believe that we can learn to use small computers, while still holding the potential threat in mind. In the United States, thanks to an era of entrepreneurship, led by companies like Apple who marketed the computer as a friendly servant, the scary picture of immense personality-crunching machines lost some of its Darth Vader appearance. In my talks in Japan to grassroots groups about computing in America, I could run off countless examples of worthy small-business and nonprofit applications, while the Japanese groups were at the most using computers for word processing, and had seldom imagined other uses. Also, computing in Japan faces unique technical problems. Word processing is complicated by the Japanese written language (kanji) which demands an extra level of translation from an alphabet organized keyboard. This means more work for the user, and it means word processing progams take up more room in memory or on disk. At one of Japan's largest newspapers, the Asahi Shimbun, housing one of the most sophisticated electronic newspaper systems in the world, there is a room of computer typesetters who use keyboards with 1500 characters—^not a task for the faint of heart. I was often baffled by what the Japanese grassroots groups thought were useful applications of small computers. For example, Japan Recycling was very interested in using small computers in their several businesses. Of course, I thought, they receive 50,000 phone calls in a day—a work load that anyone in the United States would have turned over to a computer. But no, what Japan Recycling wanted to use computers for was communications. Elsewhere I saw small organizations and businesses, even with computers, where the finances were handled with old adding machines and even abacuses. This means that the three most popular uses of computer in this country—word processing, database managment, and accounting—were not considered high-priority uses of computers. Grassroots organizations in Japan are beginning to use computer communication systems including bulletin board systems, electronic mail, and information utility services in their country, and some systems in this country. The People's Electronic Networking with Japan The Other Japan
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