The SNS Japanese use

     Have you ever heard of the name "LINE"? This is the application most Japanese use as sending message or calling. It is similar with messenger American use.  Today's topic is about "Japanese social media".

 LINE is a application that everyone can enjoy sending messages or calling with anyone have this application at any time and everywhere by free. It is made by Japanese in 2011 and now it is spread all over the world. It was the most downloaded application more than other applications in 52 countries like Thailand, Spanish, Taiwan, Chinese, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, India, Switzerland, Mexico and so on.

It has group chat 200 people can participate in the chat at the same time so it means we can call with 200 people together! It will be too loud to call though. It has the function of vote; for example, when we deicide where we are going to eat dinner, it is easier to gather everyone's opinion by using this function. Or it has also schedule function, we can ask the schedule of everyone when they are free or not. These function are really convenience so every Japanese use this application.
We can send not only message but also pictures, movies, voice messages, location information.


It all started to create the application when Tohoku earthquake happened in 2011. When the founder of LINE saw the scene people tried to contact with their families when the big earthquake happened, he got the idea of creating LINE for them. That is so sweet reason why they created it.

However, this good application also has negative points too. First, it is easy to misunderstand with each other. For example, I sent some message for my friend without emoji even usually I use emoji because I was harry. Then my friend think "Is she mad at me? Why? I did not say anything bad to her." Then next she started to be angry to me but I did not mean anything so from my position, "why she suddenly mad at me." These small misunderstanding happen many times in my country. I think Japanese is sensitive so sometimes we tend to overthink even the opposite did not mean anything bad.


This application has both good side and bad side so we should use carefully for not having trouble.


In Japan, we do not use Facebook that much like American. Basically we use LINE, Twitter, Instagram and sometimes Snapchat.

     Next, I want to introduce about Japanese habitat of Instagram. Some people go to cafe or restaurant  something gorgeous for posting good pictures on Instagram. It is called "Instagrammable" in Japanese "Insutabae". This happens among high school girl or college girl. So for example, when they hang out with friends, they choose their restaurant based on how gorgeous or fancy they are.
Some girls buy their food for only taking pictures so after taking pictures they end up throwing it away. And also many restaurant or cafe started to sell something cute or fancy foods for Instagrammable. It is one of the business in my country and also Korea now.


And the biggest difference of SNS in US and Japan is posting selfie or not. In my country, not many people post their selfie on SNS because most Japanese think it is narcissist to post their selfie on SNS. Even they do not think so they are afraid of being judged from other people so they do not do. In my case, after I posted my selfie second in a day some people said to me "You really like yourself." But in here no one say like that so I felt it is the difference of Japan and here.