In the two days before the quake hit Japan, total Internet traffic in the country followed a predictable weekday pattern, with traffic peaking around noontime and dipping thereafter. To understand the nature of mobile web usage in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami, Comscore compared Japan’s fixed Internet and mobile Internet traffic patterns on an hourly basis in the days before and after the quake hit. In a society where mobile use has become an integral part of one’s lifestyle, it does not come as a surprise to find mobile use becoming a crucial lifeline in a time of crisis. When compared to users in the US and EU5 countries, Japanese users show a higher propensity to access information via apps and mobile browsers. Japan has long been one of the world’s most connected populations, with 100.9 million mobile subscribers in December 2010 and more than 75 percent of these subscribers connecting to mobile media. In the wake of the disaster, mobile phone usage soared as people all over Japan used wireless networks to communicate and seek out information on the safety of others. When a 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck Japan off the Tohoku coast on March 11, it triggered tsunami waves of massive proportions and caused devastation to much of the surrounding region, crippling telecommunication infrastructures, immobilizing landlines and Internet access for millions.
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