ここ１-２ヶ月ずっと掛かりきりの案件があります。ある行政側への「申請」業務なのですが、いろいろに便利な反面、緻密な行政手続き作業とIT対応レベルの社会的不均衡が強く感じられます。行政側とは電話での話合いなのでいちいちの内容確認もしながら、超複雑な手順をくぐり抜けていかなければならない。なんとか「対面で」と希望してもそうはしてくれない。
そういう作業の中で、ブラウザが保存してくれている「履歴」を消去してからでないと新規ユーザーとして行政側サイトにログインできない、という事象のやむなきに至りました。それを承知の上で進まなければパソコン上での申請作業が進展させられない。「やってください」とのこと。
で、それでそのこと自体は昨夕遅く役所の時間17:00直前に進展したのだけれど、そこまでの作業過程に疲労困憊してアタマを冷やさねばならなかった。
で、今朝になってブラウザを立ち上げたら、危惧した通り、いろいろな他のビジネス上の「環境」がすべて「消去」されていた。もう一回、延々と「ID＋パスワード」入力を迫られるサイトが続出してくる。すでにPC利用して30年近い時間が経過しているので自分自身の登録情報も千差万別。
まぁ行政の対応、IT化と公的情報管理の両面から妥当性はあることだと冷静に判断はできるのだけれど、各人でIT対応力レベルには差異もあるなかで、これははたしてどうかと疑問が湧き上がる。
IT化というのは日本語文化の１領域としてまだ導入過程だと思います。たぶん古事記・日本書紀の時代の「書き言葉・日本語」の創出期や、西欧社会の文明受容の必要に迫られた日本語の拡張期〜明治の「文豪」の時代と並ぶ大変革。そして現代のITはまだ共通言語化のプロセスなのではないかと思う。
【隔靴掻痒・かっか-そうよう】という言葉があるけれど、詳細で緻密な部分について具体的なポイントをあきらかにして、その書き方、表現を共通化させるというのは、なかなかの難事。そういうことをパソコンのブラウザ操作の共通理解もあやしいなかで、対応して行くのはさらに困難だということ。
こういう経験から、行政対応のためのブラウザと、一般使用のブラウザは分けて使った方がよさそうだ、ということはひとつの仮説として浮かび上がってくる。行政対応だけのブラウザであれば通常使用のサイトなどの情報は不要なので遠慮なく「履歴消去」を決断できる。
しかしこういう情報は多くの経験知に裏付けられているものか、まだわからない。わたしの環境では生起したことだけれど、多くの検証が必要かも知れない。
しかしつくづくと、日本語（より正しくは日本語コミュニケーション文化総体）というのは常に変化し続けていることが実感させられた。
English version⬇
Firefox Browser “Erase History” - IT-ization and Socio-Cultural Friction
Public IT is an inevitable trend. However, will the difficulties multiply in the area of “rigor”? Efforts to create a common language are required. .......
For the past month or two, I have been working on a case that has been consuming me. It is an “application” to a certain government agency, and while it is convenient in many ways, I feel a strong social imbalance between the detailed administrative procedures and the level of IT support. I have to go through a very complicated procedure while confirming the contents of each and every conversation with the government side over the phone. Even if we somehow hope for a “face-to-face” meeting, they won't let us do so.
In the process, we had to clear the “history” stored by the browser before we could log in to the administration site as a new user. I had to know this before I could proceed with the application process on the computer. Please do it.
So, the application itself made progress late last evening, just before 17:00 government time, but I was so exhausted by the process that I had to cool my head down.
When I launched my browser this morning, I found that all my other business “environments” had been “erased” as I had feared. Once more, a series of sites that force me to enter my “ID + password” endlessly. I have already been using PCs for almost 30 years, so my own registered information is also very different.
I can calmly judge the government's response as reasonable from the perspective of both IT and public information management, but I wonder if this is really the case, given that each individual has different levels of IT skills.
I think that IT is still in the process of being introduced as an area of Japanese culture. It is probably a major transformation, comparable to the creation of “written Japanese” during the period of the Kojiki and Nihonshoki, the expansion of the Japanese language due to the necessity of accepting Western civilization, and the period of the “great writers” of the Meiji era. And I believe that IT today is still in the process of becoming a common language.
There is a word “kakka-souyou,” which means “to scratch a itch on one's own shoe,” but it is quite a difficult task to clarify specific points about detailed and precise parts and to standardize the way of writing and expressing them. It is even more difficult to deal with such a situation when there is little common understanding of how to operate a computer browser.
Based on this experience, one hypothesis that emerges is that it is better to use separate browsers for administrative use and for general use. If you use the browser only for administrative purposes, you can make the decision to “clear history” without hesitation, since you do not need information about the sites you normally use.
However, I am not sure if this information is backed up by much empirical knowledge. This happened to me in my environment, but it may require a lot of verification.
However, it made me realize that the Japanese language (or more correctly, the Japanese communication culture as a whole) is constantly changing.
