18 ms·

Japan home to 541,000 young recluses

163 points by mattnumbe 10y ago

mattnumbe 10y ago
Does any one know if this happens in other countries? I remember watching a documentary about the social workers that help these young people make transitions from recluses to members of society. Although the article says that the number has decreased in recent years, I'd be surprised if it hasn't increased globally because of online gaming/communities. (EDIT: The documentary I saw was called "Japan's Missing Teenagers" which aired on SBS in 2003. Really interesting but I can't seem to find it anywhere.)
- Kephael 10y ago
  They're referred to as NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) in the UK. As you mentioned, there's quite a few in countries like the US that don't leave their house often due to gaming addictions. I've seen many people on Steam showing north of 150 hours of games played in the last two weeks and I don't believe they're just leaving the game running.
  - smartbit 10y ago
    A Palo Alto Networks NGFW has a category 'Media' which includes Video, snapchat, etc. Deny Media is quite effective against any form of behavior with a computer that supports NEET.
  - wccrawford 10y ago
    NEET is a term used in Japan, too, and it's not quite the same as hikikomori, but they're close enough that they're often used interchangeably.
- Analemma_ 10y ago
  There's a theory out there, "to see what the West will look like in 10-20 years, look at Japan today". It's most commonly applied to economics (permanent low growth, low inflation and ZIRP) and demographics (falling birth rate), but I think it's true of the NEET and hikikomori phenomena as well. The "unemployed young male who just plays video games" demographic that recently got a writeup in the WSJ certainly seems to parallel Japan's NEETs. With hikikomori, it's more anecdotal, but when I flick through my Tumblr feed I feel like I see a lot of people who state outright that they just can't function outside. I think in a few more years it will be noticeable enough that we can say it's happening here "for real"
  - TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
    Consider, though, that people who can't function outside would be more likely to use the web (because they have little else to do). So it's not necessarily representative.
  - sotojuan 10y ago
    > when I flick through my Tumblr feed I feel like I see a lot of people who state outright that they just can't function outside. I'm going to sound rude and this is out of anecdotal experience (and I know some people actually can't function outside) but you should be careful when people on Tumblr say that. I've found most are just bored or lonely teenagers who self-diagnose themselves random things like Aspergers, ADHD, depression, etc. for whatever reason (sometimes for a valid reason related to family/household dysfunction, other times just to appear more interesting and to fit in online). When I used Tumblr five or so years ago I remember following these people and the ones I kept in touch with well, to sound rude again, grew out of it.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- louislumiere 10y ago
  Switzerland. last few years, finally people are starting to acknowledging the problem.
- pragmaticjj 10y ago
  It's a world wide phenomenon. While more pronounced in affluent countries with generous benefits systems, it's basically happening anywhere where supporting +1 person has marginal increase in costs.
  - kardashian007 10y ago
    We need new ways of valuing, sharing, creating and utilizing human output that isn't solely fixed on the next quarter results. PS: there is also an inherent risk of large demographics of idle people encouraging both lone wolves and mob mayhem. Busy people with friends, kids and what's inside vlogs generally don't suddenly become terrorists or overthrow the regime.
- lscore720 10y ago
  I just posted a general explanation of its prevalence in only Japan. But here's another perspective from a Japanese psychologist who's been working with Hikikomori patients for 15 years+: According to my clinical experiences, hikikomori has a history of attachment trauma with their mother (all biological mothers due to the absence of divorce in the families). When rejected emotionally by a mother, a young child hides his original self for protection, and creates a false self to adapt to the dysfunctional mother. The child grows to an adult who neither trusts nor shows his true identity to people. When the conflicts between pretending and hiding the true identify become unbearable, he would retreat into extreme degrees of isolation and confinement. This phenomenon is observed commonly across my hikikomori clients. Hikikomori begins from dysfunctional mother-child relationships, which are influenced by the society that values group harmony and compliance over individual freedom. The syndrome began surfacing when Japan achieved economic success while the mothers with traditional values were unprepared to satisfy the children’s needs for love, individual freedom, and self-actualization. Hence, many hikikomoris find no place in Japan, feeling captive in the affluent but culturally oppressive society.
adamnemecek 10y ago
This is fundamentally a failure of the education system. It's coming to the West as well. Schools force you to waste some of the most productive years learning about pretty useless things and are super inefficient at that too. What else can you do when you graduate and you don't really know anything about the world, can't really contribute to society and on every step you are reminded of being a failure. The worst part is that it will take decades for society to fix this.
- m0llusk 10y ago
  The economic system is at the core of this. People rise to meet opportunities, but jobs have become difficult, rare, and disconnected from purpose or benefit. In the past there were plenty of jobs at all levels but modern business productivity is so high that demand for labor has become specialized and for many has essentially collapsed. What exactly will replace labor is not clear, but some kind of basic income would enable people to pursue meaningful contributions to society outside the dollars per hour context and thus open up many new possibilities.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - adamnemecek 10y ago
    I think that basic income should be temporary though. Like I'm having a hard time imagining a functioning society where a significant portion of the population is on basic income.
    - cloverich 10y ago
      I think its fuzzy -- and perhaps because its so different, or perhaps because (as you suggest) it may not be realistic. But were it realistic, I'd assume hobbies would be a big part of a well functioning society. I think we'd see at least some blossoming of hobbyists where, free to pursue their highest interests, you'd see some truly spectacular music and art, some people becoming nearly professional at their sport of choice (and more esports). I think there's at least one (and perhaps many) hobbies for everyone, and that many people working and parenting never get around to discovering them. Having only more recently discovered mine, I can tell you I wish i had more time to pursue them!
wje 10y ago
There's a solo pen and paper RPG called Hikikomori (named after the phenomenon) which is quite unsettling to play. http://dsg.neko-machi.com/hikikomori.pdf http://dsg.neko-machi.com/hikikomori.pdf
- prawn 10y ago
  Someone should make that as an app or web site. I think it'd be interesting for more people to experience it, and something less reliant on having dice and checking tables would be more accessible.
  - TranquilMarmot 10y ago
    This sounds like a fun (albeit depressing...) weekend project.
  - wccrawford 10y ago
    I agree that it sounds like a great web app (I had the same thought) but I think you need to be careful not to be too hand-holdy. Half the game is the journaling of the situation, and if you too hand-holdy I think you lose a lot of the impetus to do the journaling. Or at least to do it well. Still, I'm definitely considering it for this one, or something like it.
    - prawn 10y ago
      I think that even without the journaling, it could give some insight into social phobia, depression and malaise.
imaginology 10y ago
Why is this a problem? What's wrong with living a reclusive life, if that's what you want to do? I live alone and don't go outside unless I have to buy food. I work online, and make electronic music and play video games when I'm not working. It's how I choose to live my life and don't see anything wrong with it.
- sotojuan 10y ago
  I think if half a million young people are doing it, it's worth at least studying right? No need to call it bad or good just yet.
  - mattnumbe 10y ago
    According to the documentary I watched, a lot of these people are very intellectual but have some kind of falling out with society. Since Japan bases a lot of it's social norms on or around shame, these people become recluses because of their "failure" not because they want to play video games and be on the internet. A half a million people not contributing to a society that is already lacking in labor force cannot be called a good thing.
- pcurve 10y ago
  There are pretty specific set of criteria to be labeled as hikikomori and I'm not sure if you quite fit that definition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori
  - labster 10y ago
    GP does not sound like a hikikomori; he even admits to going outside occasionally. If he wants to increase his hiki-level, he needs to reduce social contact as much as possible, and only come leave his home at hours when no one will notice him, if he leaves at all. The whole point is essentially self-imposed solitary confinement due to extreme fear/depression/social anxiety. Asking what's wrong with a reclusive life doesn't sound hiki to me at all.
- 10y ago
epa 10y ago
I wonder if the introduction of plastics, bpa, or other chemicals have something to do with this and other issues we see growing over time. Likely we will not know for 50-80 years (see: Smoking, asbestos).
- MollyR 10y ago
  Are you suggesting endocrine disruptors are affecting mental health ? That would be an interesting study. Especially since we have research suggesting the gut(microbiome) plays a role in mental health.
- bjacobel 10y ago
  Don't forget about the chemtrails.
pullingour_ 10y ago
Japanese employment system is probably the major reason for this problem. New graduates is the most important and dropout are abandoned. From my own experience(I spent 3 years at home).
- kardashian007 10y ago
  It's another sign of the global oversupply of labor and the inability to harness talents going to waste. Folks under twenty in the US are experiencing some of the very same pressures.
unabst 10y ago
I really wish they asked if they had friends, real or imaginary. And if they had income. And if they shopped online. That would make a big difference in what the survey actually means. The internet could arguably be far larger, faster, and more satisfying than the real world for these people. Maybe they just let the world come to them? I guess all I am saying is, hikikomori definitely ain't what it used to be.
FrozenVoid 10y ago
I'm not a recluse technically(i do leave the house when i need it), but i can understand the mentality behind it. Socialization is not a walk in the park, its time-consuming and requires serious commitment/effort(there plenty of "difficult" people) - while having people on the internet as the social group doesn't place a burden on the person at all(he can leave or change the group any time without much investment). Avoiding unnecessary social interactions reduces stress and allows more time to be dedicated to own pursuits, at some cost of appearing more awkward/maladaptive within social circles. A price many are willing to pay: the problem is that social interactions are unavoidable long-term and lead to low social status as established social circles create a psychological entrance barrier of shared expirience/in-jokes/culture which evolves with them(like e.g. insulated internet communities) where any faux-pas disqualifies one from being a member.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
jackcosgrove 10y ago
Cultural critics like to blame individuals for behavior like this, but in Japan's case it's mostly economic. Japan's economy was export dependent for a long time. The Japanese would manufacture more than they consumed and sell the surplus to the world. This ended when the Asian Tigers repeated the strategy at lower cost. Meanwhile asset prices inflated wildly because people thought the good times would never end. Which they did in the early 90s. With demand for Japan's surplus product less, and assets overpriced, Japan had to begin a painful process of deflation. I think house prices fell for over 20 years after the bubble burst. Japan's economy began to bifurcate after this, with the remaining good jobs going to the best students and the other students left with temporary jobs. The stakes are high for Japanese students. Fundamentally, the Japanese islands are crowded and not very resource rich. Exporting finished goods allowed the population to grow above the economic carrying capacity of the land, and now the population is falling to adjust to the new reality. If Japan still had a go-go economy like it did in the 70s and 80s, I doubt there would be as many recluses.
- pmyjavec 10y ago
  So other countries probably have a lot to learn from this by the sound of it?
  - hx87 10y ago
    Lesson #1: Don't try to preserve social harmony by delaying indefinitely the consequences of bad company decisions. Clean up quickly and effectively instead. It seems like most countries have learned the lesson (or have never had to) and avoided the mistakes Japan has made, although the EU is headed in vaguely similar directions.
lscore720 10y ago
This is often depression from failure to meet early career expectations. The Japanese, like many Asian cultures, are a highly driven society where career goals are set very early in life by the parents. In such a competitive society, failure to secure a highly sought after starting job with a good company, after attending some of the best colleges & universities, is a social stigma, and causes withdrawal from friends and family members. Prolonged withdrawal often turns into a real clinical depression. The protective nature of the Asian family allows this withdrawal from society to continue longer than initially planned, and soon their motivation to move forward in life is lost. Prolonged lack of work becomes hard to explain in resumes and job interviews, which further perpetuates this unfortunate phenomena. This societal situation combined with Japans's extreme economic shift (from miracle economy to great stagnation)to create this perfect storm that is Hikikomori.
unimportant 10y ago
I'm a recluse myself. Modern society has little to offer to most men that aren't top tier earners, looks etc. You'll live in some shit tier city because you aren't making enough to move somewhere nice (or can't get a work visa), people around you are aggressive low IQ proles in Europe - always looking to pick fights (see https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1713078/moments-after-photo-of-teenage-gang-was-taken-an-innocent-polish-man-arek-jozwik-was-beaten-to-death/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1713078/moments-after-photo-of... ), if you aren't an aggressive muscular guy you'll just get some fugly harpy who will "settle" for you. There's just nothing in it for me. I have been to Japan and the society is fairly autistic. People are polite but want to stay in their own little bubble. You could collapse on the street in Tokyo and nobody would give a shit if you don't block the entrance of a business. In the outskirts of Tokyo people live in bleak housing blocks that already look depressing from far away that make modern condos look like masterpieces. Think this ten times the size: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Cwmbran_tower_block.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Cwmbran_... The society is super hierarchical, with old people being on top and young people earning almost nothing, jobs being hard to come by, guys not getting girlfriends / wifes cause strong independent women don't need no man and socializing with random people outside the internet is highly uncommon as well. If I was in Japan I would be a recluse as well. EDIT: Bring on the downvotes. I miss the usenet days where people actually had similar opinions to me and it was still a 99% male space where women were universally hated - long before fuckbook, twatter and young engineered brainwashed by colleges into becoming social justice warriors.
- mei0Iesh 10y ago
  Just a heads up... Hacker News is not a free speech zone. The slightest negative emotion in a comment will have it either disappear or you banned. Even just writing a vulgar word is risky here. It is absolutely nothing like Usenet. This is the private forum of a Silicon Valley business. It leans more toward the new generation of mobile startup culture than what you're from. I sympathize with you being rejected after commenting about how you feel rejected. It isn't very fair. The virtual space used to be a refuge for recluses who were ran out of regular society. Physical appearance or health did not factor in because nobody could see you. But the Internet isn't that place anymore. Now it is dominated by the same competitions. To get favorable treatment here you need to be beautiful or wealthy. If your account was "pg" you could write this and anything else and it would be voted to the top. Sorry. You have an ugly personality, and it requires special compassion for anyone to not reject that. Not everyone knows what it feels like to be rejected and how it can push you further into ugliness. I don't have any solutions for that, just wanted to let you know someone out there recognizes the pain.
cairo_x 10y ago
In Japan you're not mentally ill, you're a recluse. In Russia you're not homosexual, you're a paedophile. Doesn't this simply illustrate the awful way in which human beings are treated -- by countries slightly more backward than those that, at least, acknowledge the existence of mental illness, or sexuality? (BTW:I'm not equating sexuality with mental illness, but the way certain things are ignored, or labelled/conflated.)
pmyjavec 10y ago
If you've ever traveled to Japan and stayed with a "Salaryman", it might help explain why some people have trouble "adjusting to work life". This guy I stayed with got about 5, maybe 6 hours sleep a night, worked 12 hour days (at least), and would be required to participate in mandatory social activities, such as attending a hostess bar and drinking. In Europe and Netherlands, this guys work conditions would be considered extreme and in the case of Australia, probably illegal. I'm not saying that there isn't other factors like education and economics at play, but the way I saw pepople living, falling asleep on the train and not getting proper sleep, looked pretty unappealing to me. It doesn't feel like there is anything wrong with these people at all.
- a_bonobo 10y ago
  I've been reading Zielenziger's Shutting Out The Sun on the hikkikomori phenomenon, and among many depressing story there's one that stuck out: a father, mother and their early 20s hikkikomori son were sharing an apartment, with their son having very little communication with his parents. One day he burst out to his mother: 'Why did you divorce my father?' The mother answered that they did not divorce, it's just that the father leaves for work before the son wakes up and returns from work after the son goes to bed.
  - new299 10y ago
    I don't get it. What about weekends. Or the (frequent) national holidays? I've never heard of people in Japan being forced to work regularly on weekends or on national holidays that would be pretty strange in my experience (though long working hours less strange of course).
    - nugget 10y ago
      From what I've seen the long hours can sometimes create an emotional disconnect between the worker and his family, such that even when there is time off, they prefer to spend it separately.
    - nkoren 10y ago
hasenj 10y ago
Are there any stats on how many of these people are obese?
ubik 10y ago
Coming next: white America
bjacobel 10y ago
The people commenting in this thread to the effect of "what's wrong with this, I live like this too" just blow me away. This isn't a way to live, it's a way to hide. You have a mental illness and should seek support.
- SimpleXYZ 10y ago
  It must be nice knowing the "correct" way to live.
  - tdb7893 10y ago
    I feel like for such a fundamentally social animal eschewing social interactions is not good. If other social animals (e.g. dogs) exhibit similar behaviours I would assume that they are sick somehow or they had some trauma. You can get social interactions from the internet but in my experience (and also from observing others) it's much harder for those to be fulfilling and it seems harder for people who get their interactions this way to be happy.
  - wanderer2323 10y ago
    I maybe don't know the 'correct' way to live but I know of several incorrect ones.
twoquestions 10y ago
I can understand why these people are like this. As other people said, only the very top jobs and graduates count for anything, if you're not elite you may as well drop dead. This is starting to happen in other economies too, but I digress. Also, the amount of what I'll call "social bullshit" is piled high (if you have a better, less provocative term, let me know). What is said is very far away from what is meant, and if you can't peel away the onion of social bullshit to discover what people really mean, communication is very difficult. Even playing patio11's game Stockfighter was very difficult for me to understand the directions, as the space between what you're supposed to do and what he suggests to do is very large (to me).
okwhatthe2 10y ago
This seems relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_futility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_futility Futility being the key term.

163 points by mattnumbe 10y ago

Does any one know if this happens in other countries? I remember watching a documentary about the social workers that help these young people make transitions from recluses to members of society. Although the article says that the number has decreased in recent years, I'd be surprised if it hasn't increased globally because of online gaming/communities. (EDIT: The documentary I saw was called "Japan's Missing Teenagers" which aired on SBS in 2003. Really interesting but I can't seem to find it anywhere.)

Kephael 10y ago
They're referred to as NEET (Not in Education, Employment, or Training) in the UK. As you mentioned, there's quite a few in countries like the US that don't leave their house often due to gaming addictions. I've seen many people on Steam showing north of 150 hours of games played in the last two weeks and I don't believe they're just leaving the game running.
- smartbit 10y ago
  A Palo Alto Networks NGFW has a category 'Media' which includes Video, snapchat, etc. Deny Media is quite effective against any form of behavior with a computer that supports NEET.
- wccrawford 10y ago
  NEET is a term used in Japan, too, and it's not quite the same as hikikomori, but they're close enough that they're often used interchangeably.
Analemma_ 10y ago
There's a theory out there, "to see what the West will look like in 10-20 years, look at Japan today". It's most commonly applied to economics (permanent low growth, low inflation and ZIRP) and demographics (falling birth rate), but I think it's true of the NEET and hikikomori phenomena as well. The "unemployed young male who just plays video games" demographic that recently got a writeup in the WSJ certainly seems to parallel Japan's NEETs. With hikikomori, it's more anecdotal, but when I flick through my Tumblr feed I feel like I see a lot of people who state outright that they just can't function outside. I think in a few more years it will be noticeable enough that we can say it's happening here "for real"
- TazeTSchnitzel 10y ago
  Consider, though, that people who can't function outside would be more likely to use the web (because they have little else to do). So it's not necessarily representative.
- sotojuan 10y ago
  > when I flick through my Tumblr feed I feel like I see a lot of people who state outright that they just can't function outside. I'm going to sound rude and this is out of anecdotal experience (and I know some people actually can't function outside) but you should be careful when people on Tumblr say that. I've found most are just bored or lonely teenagers who self-diagnose themselves random things like Aspergers, ADHD, depression, etc. for whatever reason (sometimes for a valid reason related to family/household dysfunction, other times just to appear more interesting and to fit in online). When I used Tumblr five or so years ago I remember following these people and the ones I kept in touch with well, to sound rude again, grew out of it.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
louislumiere 10y ago
Switzerland. last few years, finally people are starting to acknowledging the problem.
pragmaticjj 10y ago
It's a world wide phenomenon. While more pronounced in affluent countries with generous benefits systems, it's basically happening anywhere where supporting +1 person has marginal increase in costs.
- kardashian007 10y ago
  We need new ways of valuing, sharing, creating and utilizing human output that isn't solely fixed on the next quarter results. PS: there is also an inherent risk of large demographics of idle people encouraging both lone wolves and mob mayhem. Busy people with friends, kids and what's inside vlogs generally don't suddenly become terrorists or overthrow the regime.
lscore720 10y ago
I just posted a general explanation of its prevalence in only Japan. But here's another perspective from a Japanese psychologist who's been working with Hikikomori patients for 15 years+: According to my clinical experiences, hikikomori has a history of attachment trauma with their mother (all biological mothers due to the absence of divorce in the families). When rejected emotionally by a mother, a young child hides his original self for protection, and creates a false self to adapt to the dysfunctional mother. The child grows to an adult who neither trusts nor shows his true identity to people. When the conflicts between pretending and hiding the true identify become unbearable, he would retreat into extreme degrees of isolation and confinement. This phenomenon is observed commonly across my hikikomori clients. Hikikomori begins from dysfunctional mother-child relationships, which are influenced by the society that values group harmony and compliance over individual freedom. The syndrome began surfacing when Japan achieved economic success while the mothers with traditional values were unprepared to satisfy the children’s needs for love, individual freedom, and self-actualization. Hence, many hikikomoris find no place in Japan, feeling captive in the affluent but culturally oppressive society.

adamnemecek 10y ago

This is fundamentally a failure of the education system. It's coming to the West as well. Schools force you to waste some of the most productive years learning about pretty useless things and are super inefficient at that too. What else can you do when you graduate and you don't really know anything about the world, can't really contribute to society and on every step you are reminded of being a failure. The worst part is that it will take decades for society to fix this.

m0llusk 10y ago
The economic system is at the core of this. People rise to meet opportunities, but jobs have become difficult, rare, and disconnected from purpose or benefit. In the past there were plenty of jobs at all levels but modern business productivity is so high that demand for labor has become specialized and for many has essentially collapsed. What exactly will replace labor is not clear, but some kind of basic income would enable people to pursue meaningful contributions to society outside the dollars per hour context and thus open up many new possibilities.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- adamnemecek 10y ago
  I think that basic income should be temporary though. Like I'm having a hard time imagining a functioning society where a significant portion of the population is on basic income.
  - cloverich 10y ago
    I think its fuzzy -- and perhaps because its so different, or perhaps because (as you suggest) it may not be realistic. But were it realistic, I'd assume hobbies would be a big part of a well functioning society. I think we'd see at least some blossoming of hobbyists where, free to pursue their highest interests, you'd see some truly spectacular music and art, some people becoming nearly professional at their sport of choice (and more esports). I think there's at least one (and perhaps many) hobbies for everyone, and that many people working and parenting never get around to discovering them. Having only more recently discovered mine, I can tell you I wish i had more time to pursue them!

wje 10y ago

There's a solo pen and paper RPG called Hikikomori (named after the phenomenon) which is quite unsettling to play. http://dsg.neko-machi.com/hikikomori.pdf http://dsg.neko-machi.com/hikikomori.pdf

prawn 10y ago
Someone should make that as an app or web site. I think it'd be interesting for more people to experience it, and something less reliant on having dice and checking tables would be more accessible.
- TranquilMarmot 10y ago
  This sounds like a fun (albeit depressing...) weekend project.
- wccrawford 10y ago
  I agree that it sounds like a great web app (I had the same thought) but I think you need to be careful not to be too hand-holdy. Half the game is the journaling of the situation, and if you too hand-holdy I think you lose a lot of the impetus to do the journaling. Or at least to do it well. Still, I'm definitely considering it for this one, or something like it.
  - prawn 10y ago
    I think that even without the journaling, it could give some insight into social phobia, depression and malaise.

imaginology 10y ago

Why is this a problem? What's wrong with living a reclusive life, if that's what you want to do? I live alone and don't go outside unless I have to buy food. I work online, and make electronic music and play video games when I'm not working. It's how I choose to live my life and don't see anything wrong with it.

sotojuan 10y ago
I think if half a million young people are doing it, it's worth at least studying right? No need to call it bad or good just yet.
- mattnumbe 10y ago
  According to the documentary I watched, a lot of these people are very intellectual but have some kind of falling out with society. Since Japan bases a lot of it's social norms on or around shame, these people become recluses because of their "failure" not because they want to play video games and be on the internet. A half a million people not contributing to a society that is already lacking in labor force cannot be called a good thing.
pcurve 10y ago
There are pretty specific set of criteria to be labeled as hikikomori and I'm not sure if you quite fit that definition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori
- labster 10y ago
  GP does not sound like a hikikomori; he even admits to going outside occasionally. If he wants to increase his hiki-level, he needs to reduce social contact as much as possible, and only come leave his home at hours when no one will notice him, if he leaves at all. The whole point is essentially self-imposed solitary confinement due to extreme fear/depression/social anxiety. Asking what's wrong with a reclusive life doesn't sound hiki to me at all.
10y ago

epa 10y ago

I wonder if the introduction of plastics, bpa, or other chemicals have something to do with this and other issues we see growing over time. Likely we will not know for 50-80 years (see: Smoking, asbestos).

MollyR 10y ago
Are you suggesting endocrine disruptors are affecting mental health ? That would be an interesting study. Especially since we have research suggesting the gut(microbiome) plays a role in mental health.
bjacobel 10y ago
Don't forget about the chemtrails.

pullingour_ 10y ago

Japanese employment system is probably the major reason for this problem. New graduates is the most important and dropout are abandoned. From my own experience(I spent 3 years at home).

kardashian007 10y ago
It's another sign of the global oversupply of labor and the inability to harness talents going to waste. Folks under twenty in the US are experiencing some of the very same pressures.

unabst 10y ago

I really wish they asked if they had friends, real or imaginary. And if they had income. And if they shopped online. That would make a big difference in what the survey actually means. The internet could arguably be far larger, faster, and more satisfying than the real world for these people. Maybe they just let the world come to them? I guess all I am saying is, hikikomori definitely ain't what it used to be.

FrozenVoid 10y ago

I'm not a recluse technically(i do leave the house when i need it), but i can understand the mentality behind it. Socialization is not a walk in the park, its time-consuming and requires serious commitment/effort(there plenty of "difficult" people) - while having people on the internet as the social group doesn't place a burden on the person at all(he can leave or change the group any time without much investment). Avoiding unnecessary social interactions reduces stress and allows more time to be dedicated to own pursuits, at some cost of appearing more awkward/maladaptive within social circles. A price many are willing to pay: the problem is that social interactions are unavoidable long-term and lead to low social status as established social circles create a psychological entrance barrier of shared expirience/in-jokes/culture which evolves with them(like e.g. insulated internet communities) where any faux-pas disqualifies one from being a member.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

jackcosgrove 10y ago

Cultural critics like to blame individuals for behavior like this, but in Japan's case it's mostly economic. Japan's economy was export dependent for a long time. The Japanese would manufacture more than they consumed and sell the surplus to the world. This ended when the Asian Tigers repeated the strategy at lower cost. Meanwhile asset prices inflated wildly because people thought the good times would never end. Which they did in the early 90s. With demand for Japan's surplus product less, and assets overpriced, Japan had to begin a painful process of deflation. I think house prices fell for over 20 years after the bubble burst. Japan's economy began to bifurcate after this, with the remaining good jobs going to the best students and the other students left with temporary jobs. The stakes are high for Japanese students. Fundamentally, the Japanese islands are crowded and not very resource rich. Exporting finished goods allowed the population to grow above the economic carrying capacity of the land, and now the population is falling to adjust to the new reality. If Japan still had a go-go economy like it did in the 70s and 80s, I doubt there would be as many recluses.

pmyjavec 10y ago
So other countries probably have a lot to learn from this by the sound of it?
- hx87 10y ago
  Lesson #1: Don't try to preserve social harmony by delaying indefinitely the consequences of bad company decisions. Clean up quickly and effectively instead. It seems like most countries have learned the lesson (or have never had to) and avoided the mistakes Japan has made, although the EU is headed in vaguely similar directions.

lscore720 10y ago

This is often depression from failure to meet early career expectations. The Japanese, like many Asian cultures, are a highly driven society where career goals are set very early in life by the parents. In such a competitive society, failure to secure a highly sought after starting job with a good company, after attending some of the best colleges & universities, is a social stigma, and causes withdrawal from friends and family members. Prolonged withdrawal often turns into a real clinical depression. The protective nature of the Asian family allows this withdrawal from society to continue longer than initially planned, and soon their motivation to move forward in life is lost. Prolonged lack of work becomes hard to explain in resumes and job interviews, which further perpetuates this unfortunate phenomena. This societal situation combined with Japans's extreme economic shift (from miracle economy to great stagnation)to create this perfect storm that is Hikikomori.

unimportant 10y ago

I'm a recluse myself. Modern society has little to offer to most men that aren't top tier earners, looks etc. You'll live in some shit tier city because you aren't making enough to move somewhere nice (or can't get a work visa), people around you are aggressive low IQ proles in Europe - always looking to pick fights (see https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1713078/moments-after-photo-of-teenage-gang-was-taken-an-innocent-polish-man-arek-jozwik-was-beaten-to-death/ https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1713078/moments-after-photo-of... ), if you aren't an aggressive muscular guy you'll just get some fugly harpy who will "settle" for you. There's just nothing in it for me. I have been to Japan and the society is fairly autistic. People are polite but want to stay in their own little bubble. You could collapse on the street in Tokyo and nobody would give a shit if you don't block the entrance of a business. In the outskirts of Tokyo people live in bleak housing blocks that already look depressing from far away that make modern condos look like masterpieces. Think this ten times the size: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Cwmbran_tower_block.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Cwmbran_... The society is super hierarchical, with old people being on top and young people earning almost nothing, jobs being hard to come by, guys not getting girlfriends / wifes cause strong independent women don't need no man and socializing with random people outside the internet is highly uncommon as well. If I was in Japan I would be a recluse as well. EDIT: Bring on the downvotes. I miss the usenet days where people actually had similar opinions to me and it was still a 99% male space where women were universally hated - long before fuckbook, twatter and young engineered brainwashed by colleges into becoming social justice warriors.

mei0Iesh 10y ago
Just a heads up... Hacker News is not a free speech zone. The slightest negative emotion in a comment will have it either disappear or you banned. Even just writing a vulgar word is risky here. It is absolutely nothing like Usenet. This is the private forum of a Silicon Valley business. It leans more toward the new generation of mobile startup culture than what you're from. I sympathize with you being rejected after commenting about how you feel rejected. It isn't very fair. The virtual space used to be a refuge for recluses who were ran out of regular society. Physical appearance or health did not factor in because nobody could see you. But the Internet isn't that place anymore. Now it is dominated by the same competitions. To get favorable treatment here you need to be beautiful or wealthy. If your account was "pg" you could write this and anything else and it would be voted to the top. Sorry. You have an ugly personality, and it requires special compassion for anyone to not reject that. Not everyone knows what it feels like to be rejected and how it can push you further into ugliness. I don't have any solutions for that, just wanted to let you know someone out there recognizes the pain.

cairo_x 10y ago

In Japan you're not mentally ill, you're a recluse. In Russia you're not homosexual, you're a paedophile. Doesn't this simply illustrate the awful way in which human beings are treated -- by countries slightly more backward than those that, at least, acknowledge the existence of mental illness, or sexuality? (BTW:I'm not equating sexuality with mental illness, but the way certain things are ignored, or labelled/conflated.)

pmyjavec 10y ago

If you've ever traveled to Japan and stayed with a "Salaryman", it might help explain why some people have trouble "adjusting to work life". This guy I stayed with got about 5, maybe 6 hours sleep a night, worked 12 hour days (at least), and would be required to participate in mandatory social activities, such as attending a hostess bar and drinking. In Europe and Netherlands, this guys work conditions would be considered extreme and in the case of Australia, probably illegal. I'm not saying that there isn't other factors like education and economics at play, but the way I saw pepople living, falling asleep on the train and not getting proper sleep, looked pretty unappealing to me. It doesn't feel like there is anything wrong with these people at all.

a_bonobo 10y ago
I've been reading Zielenziger's Shutting Out The Sun on the hikkikomori phenomenon, and among many depressing story there's one that stuck out: a father, mother and their early 20s hikkikomori son were sharing an apartment, with their son having very little communication with his parents. One day he burst out to his mother: 'Why did you divorce my father?' The mother answered that they did not divorce, it's just that the father leaves for work before the son wakes up and returns from work after the son goes to bed.
- new299 10y ago
  I don't get it. What about weekends. Or the (frequent) national holidays? I've never heard of people in Japan being forced to work regularly on weekends or on national holidays that would be pretty strange in my experience (though long working hours less strange of course).
  - nugget 10y ago
    From what I've seen the long hours can sometimes create an emotional disconnect between the worker and his family, such that even when there is time off, they prefer to spend it separately.
  - nkoren 10y ago

hasenj 10y ago

Are there any stats on how many of these people are obese?

ubik 10y ago

Coming next: white America

bjacobel 10y ago

The people commenting in this thread to the effect of "what's wrong with this, I live like this too" just blow me away. This isn't a way to live, it's a way to hide. You have a mental illness and should seek support.

SimpleXYZ 10y ago
It must be nice knowing the "correct" way to live.
- tdb7893 10y ago
  I feel like for such a fundamentally social animal eschewing social interactions is not good. If other social animals (e.g. dogs) exhibit similar behaviours I would assume that they are sick somehow or they had some trauma. You can get social interactions from the internet but in my experience (and also from observing others) it's much harder for those to be fulfilling and it seems harder for people who get their interactions this way to be happy.
- wanderer2323 10y ago
  I maybe don't know the 'correct' way to live but I know of several incorrect ones.

twoquestions 10y ago

I can understand why these people are like this. As other people said, only the very top jobs and graduates count for anything, if you're not elite you may as well drop dead. This is starting to happen in other economies too, but I digress. Also, the amount of what I'll call "social bullshit" is piled high (if you have a better, less provocative term, let me know). What is said is very far away from what is meant, and if you can't peel away the onion of social bullshit to discover what people really mean, communication is very difficult. Even playing patio11's game Stockfighter was very difficult for me to understand the directions, as the space between what you're supposed to do and what he suggests to do is very large (to me).

okwhatthe2 10y ago

This seems relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_futility https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_futility Futility being the key term.