17 ms·

Child suicides in Japan hit record high

229 points by Markoff 5y ago

djmips 5y ago
I don't know if I've ever seen a sadder headline...
Markoff 5y ago
Japan's education ministry says its latest annual survey shows the number of schoolchildren who killed themselves topped 400 for the first time. Also, a record high of over 190,000 students of elementary and junior high schools stopped attending. The ministry conducts an annual survey of elementary, junior and senior high schools, and schools for special needs education across the country. It covers bullying, truancy and suicides among students. On Wednesday, the ministry published the results of its survey conducted for the 2020 school year. The results show a record-high 415 children killed themselves in the year through March. That's up nearly 100 from the previous school year. Seven of the students were in elementary school, 103 in junior high and 305 in senior high. The number of elementary and junior high school students who were absent for 30 days or more was 196,127. That's up nearly 15,000 from the previous year and a record high. The rate of children who were absent has also been on the rise. The rate for elementary children increased threefold over the past ten years, to one out of 100. The rate for junior high was one out of 24, up 50 percent. The survey also looked into the number of children who stopped attending school due to concerns over coronavirus infection. It shows the total of 30,287 elementary, junior high and senior high school students were absent for 30 days or more due to such concerns. Eguchi Arichika, student affairs division chief at the ministry, says the results show that changes in school and household environments due to the pandemic have had a huge impact on children's behavior, and that the increase in the number of suicides is very regrettable. The official adds that the ministry will work to encourage children to seek help, and to ensure learning opportunities for children who cannot attend school.
wirrbel 5y ago
The Poisson distribution was first described discussing the incidence of suicide in children in Prussia, if I recall correctly. On the main matter: Societies need to cater more and better for the interest of children. All too often all other concerns come first (and children are an after thought to the interest of parents, which also aren't entirely high up in the priority list).
lemoncookiechip 5y ago
Makes you think that COVID "helped" expose a lot of what was already wrong with our society (globally) over the past 2 years. In this case (underage suicide) specifically, some factors would be depression and domestic violence due to mandated isolation. Forcing abusive parents to spend time with their children, and having children who are depressed or were on the verge of depression, enter a state of desperation that could lead to suicide rates spiking. A depressive topic in itself. PS: Should note that these are just two of the most likely reasons for the increase in children suicide, but not the only.
- throw8932894 5y ago
  Helped? If you isolate kid from its friends for 18 months and imprison it in small room, it will become suicidal. There is no need for abusive parents. Lockdowns themselfs are evil!
  - dartharva 5y ago
    Shitposting about child suicides now? Very mature.
  - elcamino44 5y ago
    It’s probably worth noting that Japan hasn’t had that kind of lockdown. Schools, after school activities, etc for most part have continued throughout the pandemic.
    - 0des 5y ago
      When you say "for the most part", what do you mean?
      - elcamino44 5y ago
        There was a period of extended school holidays last year due to the pandemic. Also some schools did suspend after school care and extracurricular activities during the states of emergency. The details probably vary widely across the country and no doubt people have been impacted, but remote schooling hasn’t really been a thing (as far as I know).
2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
A while ago I read a french news article that talked about bullying in japan and what was mentioned in it was way beyond what counts as bullying here (except for the most severe cases). Bullying is always really bad and even just "mild" verbal or physical abuse can scar a child for life. But what apparently counts as "regular" bullying in Japan truly gave me the chills. Mentioned were things like stripping others naked, throwing away their clothes, burning their stuff, hitting them with sticks, spitting among other horrible things. The article also mentioned that this went on just as a bad online with encouragements for suicide being a frequent part of the cyber bullying. Does someone here have any experience with japanese school life? Is it really that bad? Or did they just pick a number of the worst cases?
- emadabdulrahim 5y ago
  This reminded me of experiences I wish I could forget for when I was bullied from 2nd grade to 8th. What made it worse was by puberty, I realized I was gay, which made me feel the bullying was justified because of how reprehensible my sexual orientation was. While I don't believe this anymore, I do feel those experiences have left a deep scare that won't simply go away.
  - 2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
    I'm sorry this happened to you. I actually find it terrible how bullying in general is seen as "part of growing up" and other nonsense or sometimes even heavily played down with lies or fabrications like "the bully himself is actually suffering/has a bad life thats why he does it" (which is in no way generally true). Or even worse: blame is put on the victim.
    - rabuse 5y ago
      I was a bully during my teenage years. Honestly, did it for the attention from peers, and especially the girls. It's sad to say, but girls definitely favor that mentality at that age range.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
ajsnigrutin 5y ago
I've seen a few pop-documentaries about children in japan (and korea and china), where they show kids leaving their home at early hours, then doing a lot of work in school, then afterschool scholwork, aditional lectures, and then they come home at late night hours, sleep, and repeat. I'm not sure how much of this is true and/or a stereotype, but even elsewhere, i've seen parents overcrowding their kids (school)work schedules (+extracurricular activities) to absurd amounts, where the kids can't handle it anymore. This is in comparison to my childhood, where pretty much everyone had school from 8-until somewhere between noon and 2pm (depending on the year), and after that we pretty much just "went out" and did "stupid kid stuff" (mostly hanging out)
- yodsanklai 5y ago
  who was taking care of you in the afternoon?
  - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
    For younger kids (6, 7, 8yo), there was "afternoon care" in school where they did their homework and then went outside to the school playgound and played with stuff. For older ones, they went home after school, and stay there, or go out, and parents usually came home at 3, 4 in the afternoon. For even older ones (13 14, 15,..), they usually stay at home until the parents come home, and then go out again.
    - germinalphrase 5y ago
      Would you mind sharing general region and decide for context? My American Midwestern childhood was largely similar in the late 90’s, but I still had one parent at home full time.
      - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
        Then it was yugoslavia, and then slovenia (i didn't move, the country fell apart)... late 80s, and the whole 90s. So large apartment buildings in large neighbourhoods with a lot of kids of same age there (due to the way apartments were distributed), and after school, if you were bored at home, you just went out, because someone was always outside. Parents usually worked from 6am-2pm (factory workers) or 8am-4pm (administration), so they would come home after the kids, but this was seen as normal here. The elementary schools (6/7yo - 14/15yo here) were usually a walking distance from home in the cities, so we'd be by ourselves... High school usually ended somewhere between 1pm-3pm, and you'd take a bus ride home, and depending on where your parents worked, you might still be home before them. We did have extra-curricular activities, but usually you did one thing (eg. had football practice twice per week for 2 hours if you werent a "pro" in your age group), but it was unusal to have your day totally filled up. I don't have kids, but a lot of my friends do, and a half of them do it in a way as we did, but about half of them sign their kids up for every activity possible, so after school it's horseriding lessons, and then tennis practice, and then music school, so they drive them around for that.... I'm not sure how a busy schedule like that would work on me in that age, but i'm pretty sure i prefered the laid-back method, and I still had no issues, from elementary school to my engineering degree.
tamaharbor 5y ago
Coronavirus aside, I wonder how many of these deaths are related to TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter use.
- srvmshr 5y ago
  ex-Adtech engineer living in Japan. You'd be surprised how many horror stories I have encountered about teenage girls commiting suicides due to peer pressure, credit card loans & inability to keep up with fashion trends.
- nivenkos 5y ago
  What about drugs, and video games, and Satan worship?
  - mensetmanusman 5y ago
    Satan worship is in jest, but it’s interesting the root word for Satan, the devil, diablos (διάβολος) describes the ‘spirit of division’ in human societies. Worshiping conflict would aptly describe social media in many areas, so the ancients were on to something :)
  - Taywee 5y ago
    Not everything is puritanical pearl clutching. Some things are actually measurably bad for you. Comparing any old criticism of something as unhealthy to the satanic panic and conservative anti video game pushes isn't helpful at all, and doesn't really make much of an argument.
    - inkblotuniverse 5y ago
      I could imagine video games making someone's life worse. They're addictive and mostly non-productive.
- agent327 5y ago
  You are being voted down, but I can think of little as harmful as the open sewer that is unfiltered social media, especially to younger people that haven't yet learned not to take it all personally.
new299 5y ago
The best numbers I could find for the US were these: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide Which looks like 5 per 100000 for 10 to 14 year olds? The Japanese population in this age range is ~5M: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan So at the US rate we’d except ~250 suicides in Japan if the rate was the same as the US. Over the 12 to 15 range in Japan the article states there were 103 suicides. The rates seem roughly comparable therefore? It terrible that this is increasing, but it would be interesting to understand if this is unique to Japan or not.
- 0des 5y ago
  > The rates seem roughly comparable therefore? Is this asking a question? Edit: Today I learned the best course for a non native speaker is to not ask questions.
  - SirHound 5y ago
    It’s an open offer for someone who understands better to clarify or confirm incase OP has missed something from their calculations.
    - 0des 5y ago
      It's confusing when people end what appears to be a declarative statement with a question mark, not sure why I'd get in trouble for asking.
      - Hoppetosse 5y ago
        It can also be an artifact of a foreign language. The french interrogatory form can be the same as the declarative. It seems likely in this case, their use of "therefore" is equivalent to the fench "alors" which is often employed to "interrogate a declaration"
      - someotherperson 5y ago
mabub24 5y ago
Even beyond attending school during Covid-19, which by itself has been disruptive and challenging, I've heard from a number of friends who emigrated from Japan that the Japanese school experience can be pretty dismal. I also think some people are too quick to disregard the degree to which young people pick up on the quality of life and lifestyle of their parents and adults. The salaryman/woman lifestyle, the extremely long working hours, and the culture of extreme deference to work hierarchies, can be soul destroying, even for your children.
mathrall 5y ago
This is alarming; Japan is already on the verge of a population shortage as it's quite difficult for them to have children. Even with the help of the Government's benefits, it doesn't suffice. They should address this issue right away.
- iamgopal 5y ago
  Last line can be applied to almost any problem, and can be seen as a de-facto method for solving problem.
- notsureaboutpg 5y ago
  Suicide and depression are incredibly difficult things for anyone to address because they stem from unquantifiable things. When people feel like life is not worth living, despite having so many material goods and most of their basic needs taken care of, what is a government to do? Suicide and depression are high in developed, stable countries. Many people there have everything but feel there is no point to life. Our cultures of extreme nihilism which deemphasize the worth of human life are not something a government can fix even if desired.
- sumedh 5y ago
  They can solve it with immigration but Japanese people apparently dont like it.
  - rataata_jr 5y ago
    Japanese actually care about their people in this regard. Lowest crime, and other good things...
    - sumedh 5y ago
      > Lowest crime, and other good things... and yet Japan has a high suicide rate compared to many other high multi cultural developed countries.
  - rabuse 5y ago
    Homogeneous societies seem to be more stable than ones with cultural diversity. Change my mind.
giantg2 5y ago
I wonder how these correlate to parental success status. It seems the culture wants children to be successful. Children sometimes compare themselves with or view it as a competition with parents. Ones with high successful parents sometime lose hope of being better/successful (see a bunch of boys of successful male actors of the past).
someonehere 5y ago
Could have sworn I read an article a few months ago that suicide rates amongst Gen Z was increasing because of Covid lockdowns and social media causing depression/loneliness. I’m not Gen Z nor are my friends, but they sometimes make me feel like they fall into this bucket of “should I check on them more often?” for the two items I laid out above. Deep down I’m blaming social media for the increase in suicide amongst younger kids. It’s a pony show to them and they all want to outdo each other. I went to a pumpkin patch over the weekend and two late teen girls spent an hour or so trying to get the best photos holding sunflowers. The place I was at let you pick your own sunflowers. These two girls were dressed up and proceeded to set up a camera stand for one of their cell phones that had a ring light around it. They spent that time trying to get the best photo to post to their IG pages and TikTok. I get it that maybe they want to work on photography, but they spent way more effort and time than they should have when they were debating what to post to IG and TikTok. ::shrug::
- thrav 5y ago
  To be fair to them, taking a great picture at a pumpkin patch is an American tradition. They often go on the Christmas Card. I was out there attaching a tripod to a fence and trying to get a good family portrait for my daughter’s first year walking. If they spent the majority of the day outside, I feel like they have a leg up on many kids who never leave the house. I was trying to do similar things on MySpace when I was their age; Or spending similar amounts of time chained to my desk chatting with girls on AIM; Or more frequently losing 8 hours at a clip to playing an FPS. I had one staying in my house this weekend. They’re not as bad as we think they are. Most of my concern sits with the way the parents behave.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- EricE 5y ago
  We have real evidence the lockdowns were totally unnecessary - see: https://fee.org/articles/sweden-s-top-infectious-disease-expert-says-covid-19-lockdowns-are-not-based-on-science-history-shows-he-could-be-right/ https://fee.org/articles/sweden-s-top-infectious-disease-exp... And yet they still persist in many parts of the world.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
“ Also, a record high of over 190,000 students of elementary and junior high schools stopped attending. “ I feel like we are entering an era where different communities are experiencing a feast or famine in regards to how they are flourishing in the ‘modern’ world. At the zoomed out earth-scale, it seems to be a darwinian process of discovering which behaviors will exist in a century (because the only vote that matters for the future is how well your children are doing, birth rates, etc.).
- riskable 5y ago
  > a darwinian process of discovering... There's certainly a darwinian process going on with COVID-19 right now in regards to the vaccinated and willfully unvaccinated. What's not darwinian is what went on during lockdowns where well-off parents could afford to let one stay at home to keep their kids from goofing off while attending online classes. I am unhopeful that society at large will use that as a lesson learned about providing resources to the less fortunate so their children can get the (online) education they need (even if it's just an adult keeping watch over a handful of kids). If we have another pandemic with lockdowns like this I highly suspect it will go pretty much exactly the same. To be fully prepared for pandemics of the future families will need the resources necessary to keep an adult at home to watch over the children going through online learning. Giving people remote work opportunities could be a great (societal) inoculation, as it were against such inequities.
g354g43b43 5y ago
The same pressure those kids are feeling to succeed is the same pressure American men in their 30's and 40's feel to succeed and are killing themselves in record numbers.
danschumann 5y ago
I can't say anything proactive about this situation.. but I can say things. Do you find that the emotional juice of a situation is more primary than the logic of a situation? Like, people feel something and then rationalize the logic to justify their feeling. I have found that using feelingswheel to get a firmer grasp on the specific emotional chords, connections and common "songs" I tend to play, etc, has increased my ability to identify and categorize emotions on a finer level. Categorization is the least thing that must be done in order to process hurt. The brain will try to process a situation until it understands it, and it can require using emotional intuition to identify the exact feeling, as if it were a chord played on a piano, where some notes are hit more than others. It's important to categorize granular feelings (like indignant is a form of anger whereby you're upset that something is unfair) (embarassment can be a sad hurt or a disapproving disgust) (some feelings lead to other feelings) (dismissive anger is repressed by default from feeling like anger) Some people don't have true feelings, because they will automatically convert one feeling to another. Instead of feeling angry sometimes and happy other times, they feel the liminal angry/happy feeling that feels like a mecurial wire of an emotion. For instance: if they're happy, they become angry that they aren't happy more often; if they're angry about something, they're glad that they finally have something to be mad about.
- icu 5y ago
  Thank you for mentioning the Feelings Wheel. I never knew it existed and when I looked it up I could immediately see its use with my parenting as my son struggles to express his emotional state. I wonder if you've used it, or the Emotion Wheel, with children or for other use cases like conflict resolution in the workplace?
  - danschumann 5y ago
    I've found benefit across all areas of life. When dealing with other people, I find it helpful to at least be cognizant of the main emotional category, but it's easier to feel the specificity in yourself than in others.
- skim_milk 5y ago
  >people feel something and then rationalize the logic to justify their feeling Kind of sounds like projection. Depending on who you ask, it's generally understood in psychology that children raised by cold/rejecting/invalidating/selfish/abusive parents develop it to cope with having age-appropriate emotions that offend their parents. It could be perceived as a way to manipulate/convince the cold/rejecting parents into giving them what the child needs (food, attention, etc.) without feeling bad for having their age-appropriate, healthy needs - a habit that outlasts its need and stays through adulthood to the detriment of everyone. A healthy response would be to not feel bad for having feelings and, due to successfully developing self-acceptance, integrate/communicate all their emotions and rationality in a healthy way.
skhr0680 5y ago
It’s sad but I’m not surprised. Senior high school is widely viewed as the best years of ones life in Japan, and kids who started in 2020 have had to live with senior high school (minus the fun parts) for 1.5/3 years.
ekianjo 5y ago
One things that's missing from this article is that the familial context is not there to support children in Japan. Before COVID, kids are expected to spend most of the waking life at school or in the school context (they even have activity clubs in the weekends, at school, and cram schools after school pretty much everyday). The day COVID hit, children were suddenly brought back to stay at home in an environment where parents were never used to having them around.
dartharva 5y ago
It's so hard to not feel sentimental about this. Suffering to such a degree that you you take your own life is the most horrible way to go, and it's beyond heartbreaking that children are going through this. And the 415 kids are the ones who went through with it, who knows how many thousands go struggling for finding their will to live every day. Japan, and all other countries where this is an issue, need severe and disruptive interventions urgently.
webmobdev 5y ago
I also remember reading that many murder cases are sometimes intentionally or mistakenly re-classified as a suicide to close it, because the Japanese police are under a lot of pressure to maintain their high rate of solving cases. Suicides in Japan perhaps have an additional attraction in that insurance companies have to payout even if the cause of death is suicide. Couple that with the asian cultural pressure of taking care of one's family, and the cultural factor that suicide on personal failure is linked to honour and glorified in Japanese history, it becomes somewhat understandable why some Japanese individuals may find suicide as a reasonable / attractive option while contemplating how to end their depressive existence. Japan's suicide statistics don't tell the real story - https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/02/03/national/media-national/japans-suicide-statistics-dont-tell-the-real-story/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/02/03/national/media-...
gxt 5y ago
someone should get funding to check links between antiperspirant use and depression/effects of dark thoughts. Anecdata: My mood improved gradually after I stopped using retail antiperspirants. At some point (aka 12-18 months later) I got pissed of never being dry and went back to the stuff. It took 12h before the dark thoughts were back, took 3 showers as soon as I noticed, and it still took 3 days for the effect to stop being noticeable. Since this event I strongly think antiperspirants should be studied to confirm this is not just my mind playing tricks on me.
- Beaver117 5y ago
  What do you use instead? Do you have hyperhidrosis?
graynk 5y ago
Can I ask why is this on HN? How is this in any way related to tech?
radicaldreamer 5y ago
Per-country data on suicides should be treated skeptically because most cultures have a strong aversion to suicide and listing cause of death as suicide. Many are classified as accidents and authorities are generally fine with this. Additionally, suicides are usually not reported by the media to prevent copycat suicides. What I'm saying is that the "actual rate" of suicides is probably higher, maybe by a lot, in many countries than the official rate.
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  Absolutely. Just to add to your examples of why soluicide is systematically under-reported in certain countries, in many Eastern Orthodox countries (Eastern Europe, Russia, Greece), suicide is considered a mortal sin and victims of suicide are denied burial in religious cemeteries (and denied normal religious burial rights) by the church.
  - ed_balls 5y ago
    > denied burial in religious cemeteries Same for Catholics and most of Christians, hence no suicide attacks.
    - lazyasciiart 5y ago
      That hasn't been true since the 1960's, in the case of Catholics. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-catholic-churchs-own-complicated-history-with-suicide https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-catholic-churchs-own-compl...
      - ed_balls 5y ago
        but the stigma is still there.
  - maxgashkov 5y ago
    Not only that, but in Russia you may be slapped with the fine for the 'propaganda of suicide' (I shit you not it's the real law) if you even discuss suicide on more or less popular platform.
irrational 5y ago
I'm always confused when "child" is used for teenagers. I always assume child means elementary school kids and it throws me when I realize they mean older kids.
taurath 5y ago
People are really grasping for meaning and a sense of belonging nowadays in this phase of global capitalism. We could do so much better at helping people find a calling rather than hoping capitalist business owners provide them.
ganzuul 5y ago
Let's not forget the self-silencing rape victims among them.

229 points by Markoff 5y ago

I don't know if I've ever seen a sadder headline...

Japan's education ministry says its latest annual survey shows the number of schoolchildren who killed themselves topped 400 for the first time. Also, a record high of over 190,000 students of elementary and junior high schools stopped attending. The ministry conducts an annual survey of elementary, junior and senior high schools, and schools for special needs education across the country. It covers bullying, truancy and suicides among students. On Wednesday, the ministry published the results of its survey conducted for the 2020 school year. The results show a record-high 415 children killed themselves in the year through March. That's up nearly 100 from the previous school year. Seven of the students were in elementary school, 103 in junior high and 305 in senior high. The number of elementary and junior high school students who were absent for 30 days or more was 196,127. That's up nearly 15,000 from the previous year and a record high. The rate of children who were absent has also been on the rise. The rate for elementary children increased threefold over the past ten years, to one out of 100. The rate for junior high was one out of 24, up 50 percent. The survey also looked into the number of children who stopped attending school due to concerns over coronavirus infection. It shows the total of 30,287 elementary, junior high and senior high school students were absent for 30 days or more due to such concerns. Eguchi Arichika, student affairs division chief at the ministry, says the results show that changes in school and household environments due to the pandemic have had a huge impact on children's behavior, and that the increase in the number of suicides is very regrettable. The official adds that the ministry will work to encourage children to seek help, and to ensure learning opportunities for children who cannot attend school.

wirrbel 5y ago

The Poisson distribution was first described discussing the incidence of suicide in children in Prussia, if I recall correctly. On the main matter: Societies need to cater more and better for the interest of children. All too often all other concerns come first (and children are an after thought to the interest of parents, which also aren't entirely high up in the priority list).

lemoncookiechip 5y ago

Makes you think that COVID "helped" expose a lot of what was already wrong with our society (globally) over the past 2 years. In this case (underage suicide) specifically, some factors would be depression and domestic violence due to mandated isolation. Forcing abusive parents to spend time with their children, and having children who are depressed or were on the verge of depression, enter a state of desperation that could lead to suicide rates spiking. A depressive topic in itself. PS: Should note that these are just two of the most likely reasons for the increase in children suicide, but not the only.

throw8932894 5y ago
Helped? If you isolate kid from its friends for 18 months and imprison it in small room, it will become suicidal. There is no need for abusive parents. Lockdowns themselfs are evil!
- dartharva 5y ago
  Shitposting about child suicides now? Very mature.
- elcamino44 5y ago
  It’s probably worth noting that Japan hasn’t had that kind of lockdown. Schools, after school activities, etc for most part have continued throughout the pandemic.
  - 0des 5y ago
    When you say "for the most part", what do you mean?
    - elcamino44 5y ago
      There was a period of extended school holidays last year due to the pandemic. Also some schools did suspend after school care and extracurricular activities during the states of emergency. The details probably vary widely across the country and no doubt people have been impacted, but remote schooling hasn’t really been a thing (as far as I know).

2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago

A while ago I read a french news article that talked about bullying in japan and what was mentioned in it was way beyond what counts as bullying here (except for the most severe cases). Bullying is always really bad and even just "mild" verbal or physical abuse can scar a child for life. But what apparently counts as "regular" bullying in Japan truly gave me the chills. Mentioned were things like stripping others naked, throwing away their clothes, burning their stuff, hitting them with sticks, spitting among other horrible things. The article also mentioned that this went on just as a bad online with encouragements for suicide being a frequent part of the cyber bullying. Does someone here have any experience with japanese school life? Is it really that bad? Or did they just pick a number of the worst cases?

emadabdulrahim 5y ago
This reminded me of experiences I wish I could forget for when I was bullied from 2nd grade to 8th. What made it worse was by puberty, I realized I was gay, which made me feel the bullying was justified because of how reprehensible my sexual orientation was. While I don't believe this anymore, I do feel those experiences have left a deep scare that won't simply go away.
- 2pEXgD0fZ5cF 5y ago
  I'm sorry this happened to you. I actually find it terrible how bullying in general is seen as "part of growing up" and other nonsense or sometimes even heavily played down with lies or fabrications like "the bully himself is actually suffering/has a bad life thats why he does it" (which is in no way generally true). Or even worse: blame is put on the victim.
  - rabuse 5y ago
    I was a bully during my teenage years. Honestly, did it for the attention from peers, and especially the girls. It's sad to say, but girls definitely favor that mentality at that age range.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago

ajsnigrutin 5y ago

I've seen a few pop-documentaries about children in japan (and korea and china), where they show kids leaving their home at early hours, then doing a lot of work in school, then afterschool scholwork, aditional lectures, and then they come home at late night hours, sleep, and repeat. I'm not sure how much of this is true and/or a stereotype, but even elsewhere, i've seen parents overcrowding their kids (school)work schedules (+extracurricular activities) to absurd amounts, where the kids can't handle it anymore. This is in comparison to my childhood, where pretty much everyone had school from 8-until somewhere between noon and 2pm (depending on the year), and after that we pretty much just "went out" and did "stupid kid stuff" (mostly hanging out)

yodsanklai 5y ago
who was taking care of you in the afternoon?
- ajsnigrutin 5y ago
  For younger kids (6, 7, 8yo), there was "afternoon care" in school where they did their homework and then went outside to the school playgound and played with stuff. For older ones, they went home after school, and stay there, or go out, and parents usually came home at 3, 4 in the afternoon. For even older ones (13 14, 15,..), they usually stay at home until the parents come home, and then go out again.
  - germinalphrase 5y ago
    Would you mind sharing general region and decide for context? My American Midwestern childhood was largely similar in the late 90’s, but I still had one parent at home full time.
    - ajsnigrutin 5y ago
      Then it was yugoslavia, and then slovenia (i didn't move, the country fell apart)... late 80s, and the whole 90s. So large apartment buildings in large neighbourhoods with a lot of kids of same age there (due to the way apartments were distributed), and after school, if you were bored at home, you just went out, because someone was always outside. Parents usually worked from 6am-2pm (factory workers) or 8am-4pm (administration), so they would come home after the kids, but this was seen as normal here. The elementary schools (6/7yo - 14/15yo here) were usually a walking distance from home in the cities, so we'd be by ourselves... High school usually ended somewhere between 1pm-3pm, and you'd take a bus ride home, and depending on where your parents worked, you might still be home before them. We did have extra-curricular activities, but usually you did one thing (eg. had football practice twice per week for 2 hours if you werent a "pro" in your age group), but it was unusal to have your day totally filled up. I don't have kids, but a lot of my friends do, and a half of them do it in a way as we did, but about half of them sign their kids up for every activity possible, so after school it's horseriding lessons, and then tennis practice, and then music school, so they drive them around for that.... I'm not sure how a busy schedule like that would work on me in that age, but i'm pretty sure i prefered the laid-back method, and I still had no issues, from elementary school to my engineering degree.

tamaharbor 5y ago

Coronavirus aside, I wonder how many of these deaths are related to TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter use.

srvmshr 5y ago
ex-Adtech engineer living in Japan. You'd be surprised how many horror stories I have encountered about teenage girls commiting suicides due to peer pressure, credit card loans & inability to keep up with fashion trends.
nivenkos 5y ago
What about drugs, and video games, and Satan worship?
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  Satan worship is in jest, but it’s interesting the root word for Satan, the devil, diablos (διάβολος) describes the ‘spirit of division’ in human societies. Worshiping conflict would aptly describe social media in many areas, so the ancients were on to something :)
- Taywee 5y ago
  Not everything is puritanical pearl clutching. Some things are actually measurably bad for you. Comparing any old criticism of something as unhealthy to the satanic panic and conservative anti video game pushes isn't helpful at all, and doesn't really make much of an argument.
  - inkblotuniverse 5y ago
    I could imagine video games making someone's life worse. They're addictive and mostly non-productive.
agent327 5y ago
You are being voted down, but I can think of little as harmful as the open sewer that is unfiltered social media, especially to younger people that haven't yet learned not to take it all personally.

new299 5y ago

The best numbers I could find for the US were these: https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/suicide Which looks like 5 per 100000 for 10 to 14 year olds? The Japanese population in this age range is ~5M: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Japan So at the US rate we’d except ~250 suicides in Japan if the rate was the same as the US. Over the 12 to 15 range in Japan the article states there were 103 suicides. The rates seem roughly comparable therefore? It terrible that this is increasing, but it would be interesting to understand if this is unique to Japan or not.

0des 5y ago
> The rates seem roughly comparable therefore? Is this asking a question? Edit: Today I learned the best course for a non native speaker is to not ask questions.
- SirHound 5y ago
  It’s an open offer for someone who understands better to clarify or confirm incase OP has missed something from their calculations.
  - 0des 5y ago
    It's confusing when people end what appears to be a declarative statement with a question mark, not sure why I'd get in trouble for asking.
    - Hoppetosse 5y ago
      It can also be an artifact of a foreign language. The french interrogatory form can be the same as the declarative. It seems likely in this case, their use of "therefore" is equivalent to the fench "alors" which is often employed to "interrogate a declaration"
    - someotherperson 5y ago

mabub24 5y ago

Even beyond attending school during Covid-19, which by itself has been disruptive and challenging, I've heard from a number of friends who emigrated from Japan that the Japanese school experience can be pretty dismal. I also think some people are too quick to disregard the degree to which young people pick up on the quality of life and lifestyle of their parents and adults. The salaryman/woman lifestyle, the extremely long working hours, and the culture of extreme deference to work hierarchies, can be soul destroying, even for your children.

mathrall 5y ago

This is alarming; Japan is already on the verge of a population shortage as it's quite difficult for them to have children. Even with the help of the Government's benefits, it doesn't suffice. They should address this issue right away.

iamgopal 5y ago
Last line can be applied to almost any problem, and can be seen as a de-facto method for solving problem.
notsureaboutpg 5y ago
Suicide and depression are incredibly difficult things for anyone to address because they stem from unquantifiable things. When people feel like life is not worth living, despite having so many material goods and most of their basic needs taken care of, what is a government to do? Suicide and depression are high in developed, stable countries. Many people there have everything but feel there is no point to life. Our cultures of extreme nihilism which deemphasize the worth of human life are not something a government can fix even if desired.
sumedh 5y ago
They can solve it with immigration but Japanese people apparently dont like it.
- rataata_jr 5y ago
  Japanese actually care about their people in this regard. Lowest crime, and other good things...
  - sumedh 5y ago
    > Lowest crime, and other good things... and yet Japan has a high suicide rate compared to many other high multi cultural developed countries.
- rabuse 5y ago
  Homogeneous societies seem to be more stable than ones with cultural diversity. Change my mind.

giantg2 5y ago

I wonder how these correlate to parental success status. It seems the culture wants children to be successful. Children sometimes compare themselves with or view it as a competition with parents. Ones with high successful parents sometime lose hope of being better/successful (see a bunch of boys of successful male actors of the past).

someonehere 5y ago

Could have sworn I read an article a few months ago that suicide rates amongst Gen Z was increasing because of Covid lockdowns and social media causing depression/loneliness. I’m not Gen Z nor are my friends, but they sometimes make me feel like they fall into this bucket of “should I check on them more often?” for the two items I laid out above. Deep down I’m blaming social media for the increase in suicide amongst younger kids. It’s a pony show to them and they all want to outdo each other. I went to a pumpkin patch over the weekend and two late teen girls spent an hour or so trying to get the best photos holding sunflowers. The place I was at let you pick your own sunflowers. These two girls were dressed up and proceeded to set up a camera stand for one of their cell phones that had a ring light around it. They spent that time trying to get the best photo to post to their IG pages and TikTok. I get it that maybe they want to work on photography, but they spent way more effort and time than they should have when they were debating what to post to IG and TikTok. ::shrug::

thrav 5y ago
To be fair to them, taking a great picture at a pumpkin patch is an American tradition. They often go on the Christmas Card. I was out there attaching a tripod to a fence and trying to get a good family portrait for my daughter’s first year walking. If they spent the majority of the day outside, I feel like they have a leg up on many kids who never leave the house. I was trying to do similar things on MySpace when I was their age; Or spending similar amounts of time chained to my desk chatting with girls on AIM; Or more frequently losing 8 hours at a clip to playing an FPS. I had one staying in my house this weekend. They’re not as bad as we think they are. Most of my concern sits with the way the parents behave.
deleted 5y ago
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EricE 5y ago
We have real evidence the lockdowns were totally unnecessary - see: https://fee.org/articles/sweden-s-top-infectious-disease-expert-says-covid-19-lockdowns-are-not-based-on-science-history-shows-he-could-be-right/ https://fee.org/articles/sweden-s-top-infectious-disease-exp... And yet they still persist in many parts of the world.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

“ Also, a record high of over 190,000 students of elementary and junior high schools stopped attending. “ I feel like we are entering an era where different communities are experiencing a feast or famine in regards to how they are flourishing in the ‘modern’ world. At the zoomed out earth-scale, it seems to be a darwinian process of discovering which behaviors will exist in a century (because the only vote that matters for the future is how well your children are doing, birth rates, etc.).

riskable 5y ago
> a darwinian process of discovering... There's certainly a darwinian process going on with COVID-19 right now in regards to the vaccinated and willfully unvaccinated. What's not darwinian is what went on during lockdowns where well-off parents could afford to let one stay at home to keep their kids from goofing off while attending online classes. I am unhopeful that society at large will use that as a lesson learned about providing resources to the less fortunate so their children can get the (online) education they need (even if it's just an adult keeping watch over a handful of kids). If we have another pandemic with lockdowns like this I highly suspect it will go pretty much exactly the same. To be fully prepared for pandemics of the future families will need the resources necessary to keep an adult at home to watch over the children going through online learning. Giving people remote work opportunities could be a great (societal) inoculation, as it were against such inequities.

g354g43b43 5y ago

The same pressure those kids are feeling to succeed is the same pressure American men in their 30's and 40's feel to succeed and are killing themselves in record numbers.

danschumann 5y ago

I can't say anything proactive about this situation.. but I can say things. Do you find that the emotional juice of a situation is more primary than the logic of a situation? Like, people feel something and then rationalize the logic to justify their feeling. I have found that using feelingswheel to get a firmer grasp on the specific emotional chords, connections and common "songs" I tend to play, etc, has increased my ability to identify and categorize emotions on a finer level. Categorization is the least thing that must be done in order to process hurt. The brain will try to process a situation until it understands it, and it can require using emotional intuition to identify the exact feeling, as if it were a chord played on a piano, where some notes are hit more than others. It's important to categorize granular feelings (like indignant is a form of anger whereby you're upset that something is unfair) (embarassment can be a sad hurt or a disapproving disgust) (some feelings lead to other feelings) (dismissive anger is repressed by default from feeling like anger) Some people don't have true feelings, because they will automatically convert one feeling to another. Instead of feeling angry sometimes and happy other times, they feel the liminal angry/happy feeling that feels like a mecurial wire of an emotion. For instance: if they're happy, they become angry that they aren't happy more often; if they're angry about something, they're glad that they finally have something to be mad about.

icu 5y ago
Thank you for mentioning the Feelings Wheel. I never knew it existed and when I looked it up I could immediately see its use with my parenting as my son struggles to express his emotional state. I wonder if you've used it, or the Emotion Wheel, with children or for other use cases like conflict resolution in the workplace?
- danschumann 5y ago
  I've found benefit across all areas of life. When dealing with other people, I find it helpful to at least be cognizant of the main emotional category, but it's easier to feel the specificity in yourself than in others.
skim_milk 5y ago
>people feel something and then rationalize the logic to justify their feeling Kind of sounds like projection. Depending on who you ask, it's generally understood in psychology that children raised by cold/rejecting/invalidating/selfish/abusive parents develop it to cope with having age-appropriate emotions that offend their parents. It could be perceived as a way to manipulate/convince the cold/rejecting parents into giving them what the child needs (food, attention, etc.) without feeling bad for having their age-appropriate, healthy needs - a habit that outlasts its need and stays through adulthood to the detriment of everyone. A healthy response would be to not feel bad for having feelings and, due to successfully developing self-acceptance, integrate/communicate all their emotions and rationality in a healthy way.

skhr0680 5y ago

It’s sad but I’m not surprised. Senior high school is widely viewed as the best years of ones life in Japan, and kids who started in 2020 have had to live with senior high school (minus the fun parts) for 1.5/3 years.

ekianjo 5y ago

One things that's missing from this article is that the familial context is not there to support children in Japan. Before COVID, kids are expected to spend most of the waking life at school or in the school context (they even have activity clubs in the weekends, at school, and cram schools after school pretty much everyday). The day COVID hit, children were suddenly brought back to stay at home in an environment where parents were never used to having them around.

dartharva 5y ago

It's so hard to not feel sentimental about this. Suffering to such a degree that you you take your own life is the most horrible way to go, and it's beyond heartbreaking that children are going through this. And the 415 kids are the ones who went through with it, who knows how many thousands go struggling for finding their will to live every day. Japan, and all other countries where this is an issue, need severe and disruptive interventions urgently.

webmobdev 5y ago

I also remember reading that many murder cases are sometimes intentionally or mistakenly re-classified as a suicide to close it, because the Japanese police are under a lot of pressure to maintain their high rate of solving cases. Suicides in Japan perhaps have an additional attraction in that insurance companies have to payout even if the cause of death is suicide. Couple that with the asian cultural pressure of taking care of one's family, and the cultural factor that suicide on personal failure is linked to honour and glorified in Japanese history, it becomes somewhat understandable why some Japanese individuals may find suicide as a reasonable / attractive option while contemplating how to end their depressive existence. Japan's suicide statistics don't tell the real story - https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/02/03/national/media-national/japans-suicide-statistics-dont-tell-the-real-story/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2013/02/03/national/media-...

gxt 5y ago

someone should get funding to check links between antiperspirant use and depression/effects of dark thoughts. Anecdata: My mood improved gradually after I stopped using retail antiperspirants. At some point (aka 12-18 months later) I got pissed of never being dry and went back to the stuff. It took 12h before the dark thoughts were back, took 3 showers as soon as I noticed, and it still took 3 days for the effect to stop being noticeable. Since this event I strongly think antiperspirants should be studied to confirm this is not just my mind playing tricks on me.

Beaver117 5y ago
What do you use instead? Do you have hyperhidrosis?

graynk 5y ago

Can I ask why is this on HN? How is this in any way related to tech?

radicaldreamer 5y ago

Per-country data on suicides should be treated skeptically because most cultures have a strong aversion to suicide and listing cause of death as suicide. Many are classified as accidents and authorities are generally fine with this. Additionally, suicides are usually not reported by the media to prevent copycat suicides. What I'm saying is that the "actual rate" of suicides is probably higher, maybe by a lot, in many countries than the official rate.

tsimionescu 5y ago
Absolutely. Just to add to your examples of why soluicide is systematically under-reported in certain countries, in many Eastern Orthodox countries (Eastern Europe, Russia, Greece), suicide is considered a mortal sin and victims of suicide are denied burial in religious cemeteries (and denied normal religious burial rights) by the church.
- ed_balls 5y ago
  > denied burial in religious cemeteries Same for Catholics and most of Christians, hence no suicide attacks.
  - lazyasciiart 5y ago
    That hasn't been true since the 1960's, in the case of Catholics. https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-catholic-churchs-own-complicated-history-with-suicide https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-catholic-churchs-own-compl...
    - ed_balls 5y ago
      but the stigma is still there.
- maxgashkov 5y ago
  Not only that, but in Russia you may be slapped with the fine for the 'propaganda of suicide' (I shit you not it's the real law) if you even discuss suicide on more or less popular platform.

irrational 5y ago

I'm always confused when "child" is used for teenagers. I always assume child means elementary school kids and it throws me when I realize they mean older kids.

taurath 5y ago

People are really grasping for meaning and a sense of belonging nowadays in this phase of global capitalism. We could do so much better at helping people find a calling rather than hoping capitalist business owners provide them.

ganzuul 5y ago

Let's not forget the self-silencing rape victims among them.