I have been working remotely from home for the past three years or so and have noticed something.

"Many neighborhood broadcasts of requests to search for wandering(*) older adults."

I say "many," but it's only about once a week.

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Incidentally, according to the data, the number of missing persons among these wandering elderly is 17,565 per year (in 2022).

"Missing" means "still unaccounted for," so I think they are deceased (if my interpretation is incorrect, please point it out).

I have in my mind the number of 5,000 traffic fatalities year and 20,000 suicides per year, so this number of missing persons is significant.

In terms of one day, 48 persons/day.

The total land area of Japan is 378,000 km2, and based on the cell phone coverage rate, we can roughly assume that 1/3 of this area is inhabited, which is 124,000 km2.

Assuming that the coverage area of the town broadcasts and the maximum daily travel distance of older people is 10 km, roughly 314 km2 (10 km radius), which is my subjective estimate, and assuming that the area can be classified into 400 regions, the incidence of the town broadcasts is once every 8.3 days.

Even if it were Fermi's estimation, I think this calculation is too crude.

For the most part, not everyone who was broadcasted in town should be missing.

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I am impressed with that 'neighborhood broadcasts' is pretty awesome.

No matter how widespread the use of smartphones becomes, media that appeal only to the human auditory sense is the most powerful.

It can undoubtedly limit (locally) the number of people involved (collaborators) and is expected to be effective.

In general, digital is convenient, but it still cannot match the power of analog.

(*) In recent years, an increasing number of local governments have changed the term "wandering" to "walking alone," but there is no request from the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare to use this terminology.