Verging out at home new lifestyle trend

Even amid the current recession, some products are selling well, including game consoles, home electric cooking appliances and easy-to-use vegetable gardening kits--essential goods for people who enjoy staying at home rather than going out, and who are creating a new lifestyle in the process. Kenji Soma, 22, a senior at Hosei University, was watching a comedy video on a personal computer in his room in a student apartment complex

In Sagamihara, Kanagawa Prefecture, recently, while operating a remote control device to play a soccer game on his TV. "There are a lot of things I want to do when I'm in my room, so I often do two things at once," Soma said. The student, who lives alone, said his dream is "to buy a projector and large screen to enjoy games and movies in my room." He said he felt happiest when watching DVDs and videos in his room

And that he sometimes passed the time this way for more than 10 hours at a time. According to a Dentsu Inc. survey on lifestyle preferences, 40.8 percent of people across all generations said they preferred staying at home to going out. The figure was 7.6 percentage points higher than the previous survey eight years ago. The growth trend of those preferring home-based lifestyles is conspicuously higher among younger people.

That view characterized 57.9 percent of teenagers, up 23.4 percentage points from the previous survey, and 49.3 percent of people in their 20s, an increase of 15.1 points. Tetsuaki Higashida, 24, of Dentsu Communication Institute Inc., said: "During a depressed economy, people are apt to stay at home to save money. Among younger generations, many people enjoy cartoons and games at home, and it's these people who're promoting the trend."