Entertainment News

Over 95 percent of fifth-year elementary school students possess game consoles, a survey released by the National Congress of Parents and Teachers Associations of Japan (PTA) has revealed.

The PTA's "Attitude Survey on Children and the Media" polled three groups -- fifth-year elementary and second-year junior high school students, and their guardians -- on their interaction with television, mobile phones and video games.

Only 4.8 percent of the elementary school students said they don't have a game console, down 2 percentage points from last year's figure of 6.8 percent. Among junior high school students, the figure fell to 9.2 percent from 12.3 percent.

Action (including fighting games) was the most popular gaming genre among the elementary school students at 30.9 percent, followed by role-playing games with 28.4 percent. Moreover, 2.5 percent of the fifth-year elementary school students said that they often play adult video games containing sexual content.

Regarding mobile phones, 16.2 percent of the junior high school students said they send over 51 e-mails everyday, 51.4 percent replied they exchange e-mails even late at night, and 34.9 percent said they have many e-mail friends that their parents don't know, according to the survey.

TV Asahi's variety show "London Hearts" claimed the dubious honor of being the program that guardians of junior high school students don't want their children watching for the fifth year running, and animation "Crayon Shin-chan", also by TV Asahi, was named as the worst by the guardians of the elementary school students.

Out of 9,600 pollees across the country answers were obtained from 7,172 people, a response rate of 75 percent.