Due to the industrialization and modernization of the past several decades, changes in social and economic structure have
inevitably caused East Asian countries, such as Japan and Korea, to become more westernized. Due to this fact, some argue
that Japan should not be considered as an exemplar of collectivistic societies (Takano and Osaka 1999). Yet the striking cultural differences, in the normative degree of anonymity, found in this study suggests that there continues
to be a difference between Eastern and Western cultures in how people are motivated to seek and interact with others online.