Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23182523

by akandiah • 13 years ago

299 181 13 years ago

bbc.co.uk

casual_slacker2• 13 years ago

It probably doesn't help that news reports like this associate his hobbies with "major sex crimes".

eksith2• 13 years ago

Let's look at it from another perspective.

Why are 20 somethings without jobs, with minimal face-to-face social skills, average to poor grades and therefore minimal career prospects, confined to their homes when a hyper-competitive, youth loving, cute/adorable/flashy/shiny-thing loving society awaits them outside?

When the alternative is to be involved in the antithesis of your own persona, I can imagine why the slightly less horrifying self-imposed withdrawal is still more attractive than the slightly more horrifying "outside". Despite the blatantly obvious effect it may have on your life.

Source: 2 Close pals in Shiogama living together (one who had to deal with the other's hikikomori ways).

ekianjo7• 13 years ago

Indeed, the whole flashy/noisy outside world in Japan can become very alienating sometimes. Sometimes in weekends in Japan the only thing I want to do is to stay away from other people.

inthewind• 13 years ago

Yes that sounds about right, it's horrible to not have space.

laumars6• 13 years ago

There's a whole other side to Japan than the flashy/noisy side of Tokyo.

One of the start ups who frequents HN lives in Japan's country side and he's written some interesting blogs and comments on here about how he can go days without seeing another human aside his wife.

But sadly the side of Japan that seems to be exported the most is the futuristic, over-populated scenes from Tokyo and thus many foreigners assume that the whole of the nation is like it.

jmduke• 13 years ago

Hikikomori might be a Japanese term, but its not a Japanese phenomenon. I know dozens of my American friends who do the same thing -- hide from seemingly unprecedented expectations and similarly daunting odds, hide from society in alcohol, in television, in dual 2560x1600 monitors, even in exercise.

(My room was video games, and I'm glad I found the doorknob.)

jamesaguilar• 13 years ago

Hrm. There are shut-ins and hermits everywhere. It is not endemic everywhere like it is in Japan. I think, "I know an instance of X, therefore X is not a Y phenomenon," might be oversimplifying just a tad. If the rates of incidence are different, and everything I've read leads me to believe they are, that is interesting -- mainly because it adds entropy that might be useful in understanding the cause.

tankbot• 13 years ago

I understand this completely, having been through much the same during a darker period of my life. Seriously dark. Flat Black.

Sometimes I still can't believe I found the "doorknob", but I'm really glad I did.

Also, reading the term NEET here reminded me of Eden of the East, which is a cool Anime if anyone is into that.

intrazoo• 13 years ago

Same director as some of the Ghost in the Shell stuff (stand alone complex stuff) I believe. Also, everyone should check out Denno Coil. It is a super great post-cyberpunk drama that revolves around this cyberpunk ghost story. The main tech is the story is AR stuff, it is creatively drawn, and it brings new sci-fi stuff to the table as opposed to just more terminators and teleporters.

true_religion• 13 years ago

Welcome to NHK also explores the NEET phenomenon, complete with a main character who is a complete shut-in at 22.

smtddr• 13 years ago

What's going on in Japan is a bit more severe than the western world's version. It came to a point where videos like these were made - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSq0XOHxJsQ Note the top comment made 4 years ago. While depression definitely exists globally, I don't think I've heard of videos like these being made for any place other than Japan. If I'm wrong though, please correct me.

krichman• 13 years ago

What is the intended effect of that video? A proxy for human interaction?

agilebyte2• 13 years ago

I find this version better: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A12dH72757U

Don't know what she say but I was paying attention :).

running_foo• 13 years ago

Hikikomori is a Japanese phenomenon. It can't be an American phenomenon because it describes people living in Japan, influenced by Japanese society. Japan and America are night and day.

Also, people devoted to exercise are probably not recluses (which is what Hikikomori are), but they may be introverts. Reclusion != introversion.

nnash• 13 years ago

The international version of the term Hikikomori is NEET http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NEET

enqk2• 13 years ago

NEET is japanese terminology, not international. NEET and Hikkikomori refer to two different behaviour types.

GFischer4• 13 years ago

Interesting... we have a similar version - "Ni-Ni" which stands for not working nor studying ("Ni estudia Ni trabaja").

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ni-Ni

which according to Wikipedia is equivalent to NEET.

However, they're NOT shut-ins (many live in hovels, no place to shut in), so many become thieves and vandals.

Eighteen percent of youth in my country fall in this category (!!!!!)

michaelochurch3• 13 years ago

I think what makes hikikomori unusual (and the pattern is certainly spreading beyond Japan, into Europe post-2008 as well) is that it doesn't fit the traditional shut-in pattern.

Being a shut-in is nothing new, but most of those are either very old people (who are shut in for partially physical reasons) or people with severe agoraphobia (who can't leave their houses without having panic attacks) or biologically-rooted mental illnesses.

What's happening now in many countries is that people without anything physically wrong with them are becoming shut-ins at very early ages-- 20s instead of 80s.

I feel like corporatism is cultural alcohol (alcohol was more devastating to Native Americans than Europeans, who built up a tolerance over millennia) whose psychological effects are probably somewhat worse in East Asia. Corporatism is everywhere, but when it fails us in the U.S., we don't internalize it. Compared to people in Japan or Korea, we laugh it off, work odd jobs, take a couple night courses, and maybe move to another part of the country. We're used to the industrial-corporate economy melting down every couple of generations (1929, 1973, 2008) and we know that it can be awful, but we don't take it personally. We'd rather pull up stakes and move across the country. In East Asia, there seems to be much more shame to not finding a place in the salaryman system.

Hikikomori is the response, on a large scale, to the decline of a system (world corporatism, which reached peak employment in 2008) in a world where the resulting negative impacts are internalized and personalized to a much larger degree than here.

Apocryphon• 13 years ago

The modern conceptions of the Japanese, and the German, as efficient work machines, is one born of recent economics. I hesitate to describe the cause as specifically "corporatism", but I think you're onto something there:

http://www.anthonyworlando.com/2012/08/02/the-myth-of-the-la...

13b9f227ecf0• 13 years ago

I don't think corporatism is the right word as it has distinct political connotations. I think you're just talking about mass industrial employment.

I think the important dynamic you're hinting at is the failure of the Protestant Ethic. The Protestant Ethic brings material achievements into measure of your value as a human. This was generally warned against in Catholic and Orthodox theology.

keithpeter2• 13 years ago

"hide... ...in dual 2560x1600 monitors"

Oh, yes, computers can make people look so busy when really they spend all day what I am doing now.

I'm off to the shop to get the tea

keithpeter2• 13 years ago

I actually meant this seriously, it was not intended to be sarcastic.

jayfuerstenberg3• 13 years ago

Japanese society and education can be very demanding of young people.

I live in Japan and have never seen so much brainwashing on the topic of the unemployed or uneducated.

Besides the term hikikomori there is also NEET (Not Employed, Educated or in Training).

Another shocking thing is whenever an upstanding pillar of the community is shown on TV they go out of their way to mention he is a "正社員", a full time employee.

But when they discuss a criminal they always trot out that he's either "無職", unemployed or at least "派遣社員", a temporarily staffed person.

Even within companies the treatment temps get from the full timers can be cruel and uncalled for.

Until this society is taught to be less caste based I don't think the hikikomori problem will go away.

dvdkhlng• 13 years ago

I've always been startled by the word 社会人 which literally means "member of society" but AFAICS is used by people when describing themselves conveying the meaning of "I'm a full-time employee" (as opposed to student, part-time jobber etc.).

The implication being that people who're not working full-time are not considered do be part of society?

jayfuerstenberg3• 13 years ago

I wondered that too.

It has that "I understand what society expects of me and am willing to obey it therefore I'm a model citizen" vibe to it.

hkmurakami8• 13 years ago

The implication being that people who're not working full-time are not considered do be part of society?

If you're not working full time as a formal employee of a company, you are indeed looked down upon.

I have several friends in Japan who earn more from their side gigs (one is an indie musician, another is a designer, another is a programmer) but they all won't quit their day job, saying that it's vital for them to be part of their corporations to be looked upon positively by the rest of society. Hell if you aren't a full employee it's hard to even get married!

anoncow• 13 years ago

The same indoctrination exists elsewhere too. People are given respect for their degrees or position in the hierarchy. Business trainings teach employees to be good to their bosses. while stating that doing so is important if they want their careers to advance. This has become so prevalent that it seems normal and somehow good. I don't deny that businesses also teach other good things, but these heirarchial values take priority in practice.

I don't know what is good anymore.

sneak• 13 years ago

Compare and contrast HN, where anyone who doesn't own a significant chunk of the company that employs them is looked down upon.

hkmurakami8• 13 years ago

Japan is so societally uniform that many of the views in society are "the normal people" and "the not normal people".

IMO it's unhealthy.

vincie• 13 years ago

From the BBC article: "For a time one company operating in Nagoya could be hired by parents to burst into their children's rooms, give them a big dressing down, and forcibly drag them away to a dormitory to learn the error of their ways."

I was just thinking of starting up something like this in Australia, but just realised the bikies (e.g., Hell's Angels, Nomad, Rebels etc) already do something very similar.

jakejake2• 13 years ago

That sounds very similar to what my dad would have done. If you have time to be depressed in your room, then you have time to clean the garage. Not saying that this was a great solution and I certainly hated it at the time, but that's how I was raised. I pretty much learned that you do not want to be ever caught moping around the house, lest you be put to work!

tehwalrus• 13 years ago

Similarly, in my house, woe betide you if you told Dad you were bored - he would give you a list of things to do!

patio113• 13 years ago

Anecdotally, the phenomenon is exacerbated by many people with varying degrees of untreated depression. (A disease which Japan addresses shockingly poorly, even by the standards of Japanese mental health care, which is shockingly poor even considering that mental health care lags treatment of other illnesses virtually everywhere.)

hkmurakami8• 13 years ago

As you must know, mental health issues are often not considered real health issues that need medical treatment. They seem to still carry this cultural undercurrent that such mental issues are just a product of a weak mind, and that one can overcome it with gutso and bravado.

Then people are pushed to the brink and commit suicide or shut themselves off from the world. Glad I'm no longer working there.

dicemoose• 13 years ago

I think it would be fair that the acceptance of mental illnesses by Japanese society still is lagging behind other developed nations.

I have close friends in Japan that have received superb support from psychiatrists once they were able to get help for their illness. They are all doing better as a result.

sparkie• 13 years ago

It's interesting how quick people are to put a label on things: many put it down to 'depression' (which is somehow now a 'disease' in a fantastic butchering of language). Even the term 'hikikomori' is a nice label to stick on something that nobody really understands, so we can get these nice mental health experts in who can give us a name for something and help the problem go away. The current attempts to understand this, and similar conditions, are in my view flawed, and counter-productive. Before Japan floods itself with mental health care to 'fix the problem', I think the mental health industry needs a major self-diagnosis first.

I see such conditions as a battle between individualism and collectivism. The collective wants us to adapt to the behaviors and emotions of everyone else, which may conflict with the individual desire to be ones self (And thus, alone: the only place where we can be ourselves). Society wants conformity and familiarity out of fear of the unknown, and as such, we are quick to reject individualism, stick a label on it, and attempt to generalize so we can feel like we're back in control. The mental health industry is the embodiment of this collectivist mentality. It starts with a preconceived solution: that of 'normal', and infers the problems, giving names to conditions which lie outside of that considered normal.

If you consider that mental health conditions are never concretely defined: but instead a list of common symptoms is given a label based on statistical probability: you have the condition if 4 out of 6 of these symptoms apply, for example. The truth is this is all we understand - a very macroscopic view of behavior, emotion and chemical response from our bodies. Nobody really knows the fundamental constructs which define our behavior and feelings yet. The mental health industry doesn't let that stop it though, and is so sure of itself that it can easily apply labels and it can 'fix people', based solely on past results (which aren't that great). Ultimately, what defines whether or not an behavioral, emotional or chemical response is part of a condition is that of perspective: The perspective of those defining the labels based mostly on deviation from 'normal human'.

If we contrast the collective against the individual though, we might come to different conclusions about which needs 'treatment'. The collective favors false values like patriotism, piety and loyalty over actual moral values. It's greedy. The collective says one thing and does another. It's a serial liar. It pillages and murders. By any definition of the word, the collective is psychopathic. Yet individually, we have moral values. It's each of our fears that ultimately manifest into the collective, and the rejection of 'non-conformists' is part of that.

That's why we can have leaders, worshiped like gods, calling for the mass murder of innocent humans, and revered with medals of honor. At the other end of the spectrum, seemingly innocent young men and women who choose solitude, harming nobody but themselves and close relatives, are treated like the bane of society. They must be 'fixed'!

Japan is traditionally a very conformist society, and the pressures of the collective on the individual to succeed are massive. It's not surprising that at some point young people choose not to live for others anymore, but to be themselves - and living in the only place where they can be.

“Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.” - W. Gibson

Also, lets not forget how often 'mentally ill' has been used as a pretext for authoritative governments to lock away dissenters for expressing their individuality: alternative views outside those deemed acceptable by the collective.

ekianjo7• 13 years ago

There's a good anime/manga about the subject, called "Welcome to NHK" (NHK = Nihon Hikkikomori, not the TV station with the same name). It captures the situation pretty well.

i_am_dead• 13 years ago

You didn't even click the link did you

casual_slacker2• 13 years ago

I disagree. NHK shows the psychological feelings as more akin to hallucinations, and there isn't really an exploration into the disease. It's more just a story of a happy (but unlikely) sudden recovery.

ekianjo7• 13 years ago

Well, it's just a fiction so you can't expect it to be super realistic either, but it gives insights as to why the main character ended up this way. I don't think it replaces a proper study of the phenomenon but it's a good place to start with to become acquainted with the everyday life of these people.

rjh29• 13 years ago

One of its central points is that NEETs are often supported by their parents, and once this (financial) support is removed, they are forced to recover. I can't really agree with that, as it's a psychological problem.

adrianb• 13 years ago

It's mentioned in the article as well.

mililani• 13 years ago

I think the simplest explanation is the one always ignored. Japan is a tough place to live and raise a family. It's super expensive, the economy has been in a funk for a long time, the work hours are widely known to be brutally long, people don't know anything but work and sleep over there. When one is confronted by this harsh reality, one wonders, what's the point? So they either commit suicide, which Japan ranks amongst the highest in the world, or they just withdraw from society.

And look at Japan's demographic trends. It's like all of the young people just said to hell with it and are not procreating anymore. I don't blame them either. If all I had to look forward to in life is a meaningless existence of an 80 hr work week to support a small family, I would probably not even go there.

ekianjo7• 13 years ago

I think you ignore the fact that parents accept the phenomenon and don't do anything about it. They let their children become apathetic and do not take action. I see that numerous times in Japan (I live here) where there is a clear detachment between family members and an agreement that they should not influence each other's lives.

anigbrowl• 13 years ago

You mean family members actually respect each others' choices, even though they may seem dysfunctional? That sounds rather positive to me.

omegant• 13 years ago

Maybe they don't really know how to act about it. After all (and I am just guessing here) tradition doesn't teach how to help this people.

hrktb• 13 years ago

It seems incredibly broken from the outside to have parents "play the game" (not that it's a fun game in any way), but compare it to other countries where kids in a dead end will:

- kill themself or hurt themself repeatedly (the standard outcome) - do drugs - rampage at every occasion (british chavs ?) - kill others (eventually their bullies when they are bullied) - go to prison for a reason or another

If the parents knew what to do or could do it they would try. Sometimes the parents themself are so broken mentally from the weight of the situation that they are in. I think you are spot on about the parents not engaging enough with their chldren until they reach this points. The guilt about their failure as parents is also a factor in letting the kid go hikikomori instead of forcing him into anther way.

beachstartup• 13 years ago

it's happening in the US as well. and lots of other developed countries.

hell it's even happening in some cities in china.

mathrawka3• 13 years ago

"I was very well mentally, but my parents pushed me the way I didn't want to go," he says. "My father is an artist and he runs his own business - he wanted me to do the same." But Matsu wanted to become a computer programmer in a large firm - one of corporate Japan's army of "salarymen. But my father said: 'In the future there won't be a society like that.' He said: 'Don't become a salaryman.'"

Starting your own SaaS/app/startup isn't that common for Japanese people, but it is starting to pick up more steam over the past few years. Sounds like his father would be happy to know what he can do with his computer skills if he expands out to becoming an entrepreneur.

A bit of a wasted opportunity there, that I wish someone could have explained the opportunities available to him instead of becoming hikikomori.

patio113• 13 years ago

I know a few people in my generation who "opted out" of The Offer (+) who eventually found themselves doing web freelancing. There are social difficulties involved in doing it, but they're successful and MUCH happier with it than they were in their brief forays to salarymandom.

We'll be getting together for our college club annual reunion in September and once more trying to tell kids "Hey guys, if the salaryman thing doesn't pan out, we'll take you out to coffee and tell you about some other options." Many middle class Japanese kids have literally never heard that once in their entire lives.

+ Roughly 30% of Japanese society, mostly middle class and male, has this life plan in place from birth: You will study extraordinarily hard and test into a good high school. You will then study extraordinarily hard and test into a good university. You will be hired by a large Japanese megacorp along with 200 people from your university. You will then be a salaryman, owned body and soul by your company, and worked in conditions which resemble indentured servitude for roughly your first 20 to 25 years. In return, you will be promoted in lockstep with the rest of your entering class, you will never be fired, and you will be awarded social status and security with the guarantee of neither of them ever being imperiled by virtually anything.

mathrawka3• 13 years ago

There are also people who accept The Offer because they feel they have no other option. And they are not so happy about their job, but they feel they cannot quit for various social reasons ("But everyone would love to have my job at MegaCorp", "If I quit, what if I fail?"). My gentle prodding to test their comfort zone sometimes works, sometimes doesn't.

lsc3• 13 years ago

Starting your own SaaS/app/startup isn't that common for Japanese people, but it is starting to pick up more steam over the past few years. Sounds like his father would be happy to know what he can do with his computer skills if he expands out to becoming an entrepreneur.

The skillsets involved in running your own company and the skillsets involved in working for someone else... are very different animals. Especially for those without social skills (or who don't particularly enjoy social interaction) being an employee can be way easier.

I'm not even that introverted; compared to your average programmer/sysadmin, I might even be a little bit extroverted. But I find the level of dealmaking I have to do at my company exhausting, in a way that the technical work I have to do is not.

da022• 13 years ago

That sounds like a business idea. Create retail services in a market filled with custom dealmaking. I'm guessing that might be hard in your case since it sounds like you have to deal with huge datacenters and network providers.

unsignedint• 13 years ago

Honestly, I don't know if I'd blame them. Japanese society, particularly with regard to sociological structure has a lot to be desired.

Recruiting practice heavily centered to "new graduates" (which means if you don't get hired in the year you are graduating, you are screwed.)

Even if you do land on a job, then unpaid overtime being norm rather than exception.

Across the field, quality of output from any jobs in Japan are insanely high compared to many of countries; and basically workers end up paying the cost of that. (and many of them involving unpaid hours and over the top expectations) And I can certainly understand people exhausted to end up in the state of "Hikikomori."

It is a nice place to visit, but living there can be tough...

dakimov• 13 years ago

Hikikomori, momorikiki. Those are usual mental health problems such as depression (probably, around 98%), psychopathy, or mental retardation. Those guys just need to see the doctor, a psychotherapist.

Giving them tags and doing nothing about their problems is just uncivilized, such as in developing countries where most people are uneducated, the people with rare physical diseases who desperately need help get alienated or are made fun of.

rangibaby3• 13 years ago

This is a personal anecdote, but it happened last week seems relevant-ish:

My landlord is a hikikomori. He is around 50-60 years old, and refuses to leave his room in his house; he instead barks orders at his extremely elderly mother (we're talking older than dirt here; I wouldn't be surprised if she was older than 80).

She is a very kind old woman. I was shocked that he sent her to collect water money (we pay to our landlord instead of directly to the utility; they are quite wealthy and generous, so I doubt it is a scheme to extract extra cash from tenants) as I live on the third floor of a building with no elevator.

I found out about he was that way when I went over to their house to pay my water bill; I didn't want to make her walk up all those stairs again for the sake of around twenty dollars. My water heater was kinda-sorta broken from being quite old (probably as old as the building, so 1991).

She thought it was my air conditioner that was broken, and I corrected her. She stood at the open door his dark, shuttered room (this is around noon) and asked him if that was correct. He growled back in an annoyed tone "I TOLD YOU IT WAS THE WATER HEATER!"

Even though I told her it was fine, she apologized profusely, gave me some vegetables, and sent me on my way.

The whole experience was surreal...

hkmurakami8• 13 years ago

The first wave of young new graduates having problems finding work hit in the early to mid 90's, when the Japanese bubble crashed. The new grads for the rest of the 90s were called "the lost generation", with many of them never being able to find full time work. (the period was also called "The First Employment Ice Age")

That was roughly 20 years ago. This massive wave of underemployed, often-unmarried folks are now in their late 30s. The middle-aged, unemployed, clinically depressed, hikikkomori problem is about to get a whole lot worse in the coming decades (the graduating classes of 2010-2012 were hit really hard too after the financial crisis. This era was called "The Second Employment Ice Age". The class of 2009 was the last class that really had it good in the 2000s.)

panacea• 13 years ago

"hit in the early to mid 90's"

So did the internet. You couldn't be a hikikomori before then... you were simply a recluse. That was a psychological condition reserved for the 'crazy old...'

erre• 13 years ago

On a side note:

his extremely elderly mother (we're talking older than dirt here; I wouldn't be surprised if she was older than 80).

I found your choice of terms interesting :)

Most people in their 80s that I know seem to be doing fine, are physically and intellectually active, and I wouldn't describe them as "older than dirt" - unless you're talking about somewhat young dirt, here ;).

May I ask how old you are? I am genuinely curious, as I can picture myself thinking of an 80 year-old as "extremely old" when I was in my early twenties, but not nowadays (I'm 35)

api2• 13 years ago

80 is the new 60 basically.

Tangent: people think life extension will magically materialize with some singularity type event, but in reality it's a slow creeping thing. The single most powerful life extension technology ever developed is the cardiac bypass, for example.

epsylon• 13 years ago

80 is still above life expectancy by Western industrialized countries standard. It's also an age where if for some reason you are hospitalized (whether it's because of "natural" diseases for old age or because you broke a limb), chances are you will need heavy care for the rest of your life.

rangibaby3• 13 years ago

I'm 23, so that observation is spot on :-)

nilkn• 13 years ago

How can you be so certain that you know a truly representative sample of people in their 80s?

There are a very considerable number of people in that age range who are most certainly not really doing all that fine and whose physical and intellectual activity are nowhere near what they once were even ten years prior.

It's hard to know the mental and physical state of another person sometimes through a passing glance or cursory interaction. Sometimes even with more substantial interaction the true nature of their state can remain hidden from you. My grandmother, for instance, who is in her late 70s, experiences chronic pain in her knees. But I wouldn't have known that if my father hadn't told me; she generally does what she can to happily tolerate the severe pain when around family members.

ronaldx• 13 years ago

Let's be clear about this: the median world age is around 28 years.

You are old.

Kiro• 13 years ago

If I had the money I would probably stay at home all the time as well. I have no problem socializing and doing stuff. It's just that I prefer being home.

brador2• 13 years ago

You may be surprised by how cheap it is to do. You could retire forever on even just $100,000.

azth• 13 years ago

Care to elaborate? I presume this figure does not assume you have a spouse or children to support.

dualogy• 13 years ago

By sending them to your Nigerian bank account, right?

OR -- dispose of all possessions, live in homeless shelters and off ramens for 50 years -- no travels, no "little luxuries" etc?

OR -- living the high life for 6 months, then suicide?

drinchev• 13 years ago

Not that I disagree with "It's just that I prefer being home.", but in my own experience, thinking what are the things that every human being should do, I get to a few points :

* reproduce in a healthy manner ( have healthy and well supported children )

* socialize with real people ( we got facial emotions and beautiful speaking capabilities that mammals use for this )

* sport ( the other way around is unhealthy, since your muscles can become useless and you can have big healthy issues if you don't do that )

Of course that's not a complete list.

If you are afraid of doing some of those things ( not that I don't feel that I prefer to stay at home sometimes ), I think that you should consider reading some motivational books about that or change stuff in your life that suits you and make you happy. You don't solve your problems without a fight, that's just the way we live in this e-society.

I'm sorry if my comment sounds harsh.

precisioncoder• 13 years ago

I would disagree with items 1, 2, and 3 on your list. Here's my list of things everyone should do:

- Pursue your personal goals with strength and conviction

- Find out what social environment makes you happy (It's ok if it's none) and find a way to build it

- Stay healthy in body and mind in a way that is enjoyable or at least tolerable for you

6d0debc0712• 13 years ago

I don't know about harsh, and I hope you don't meant to come across like this, but the idea that I should have children, and that if I don't want to that there's a problem; that there's something wrong with me; is deeply threatening. It's an ideology with real world consequences too - When I was 20 doctors refused to give me an IUD using very similar reasoning, despite hormonal contraceptives turning me into a totally crazy bitch.

I know other women with very similar stories too. Being the potential fixee for someone's idea that people need fixing, especially when society puts you in a position where you're vulnerable, is not fun.

This sounds almost like I'm having a go at you, which isn't how I want it to come across. I'm reasonably sure that it was well meant advice. But when you start prescribing life choices to people, rather than just talking about things that might happen, it can result in a vastly more aggressive tone than you might have meant there to be.

mahmud• 13 years ago

Turning a mental illness into a sub-culture so society doesn't have to deal with it. Very nice.

harryf• 13 years ago

They interviewed someone called "Hide" on the subject of hiding at home. Seriously?

lmm• 13 years ago

It's a perfectly normal Japanese name.

jayfuerstenberg3• 13 years ago

Well, it's pronounced "Hee-day" to be fair.

But yeah, ironic.

lynchdt• 13 years ago

I couldn't get it out of my head for the whole article.

> "Hide had become 'withdrawn'"

Priceless!

znowi• 13 years ago

On this topic, I recommend to watch a movie called Tokyo [1]. It's in fact 3 short films. One of them is about Hikikomori. Very well done indie series.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0976060/

isolated• 13 years ago

There are degrees of isolation. Paul Graham talked about suburbs being a place designed to raise children. He said that as you grow older a suburb starts to seem fake. Another reason suburbs seem fake is their demographics. A place designed to raise children will primarily have children in it. After a certain age it is no longer acceptable to talk to kids as equals. You bite your tongue and talk in a sing song voice or risk the ire of parental suspicion. In their eyes anyone who would want to talk to a child is a pedophile or other bogeyman.

You have friends who grow up with you. A few generations of teens live in your town at best. Should they not enjoy your company you are SOL. Adults are suspicious of your youth, energetic youngsters scare them. They are held to the same sort of rule about talking to children except to them you are a child. That in mind it should not be hard to imagine how you end up a social pariah in the Americas.

You know there is somebody else out there just like you. You will never meet them because they are inside just like you. The large pool of bored kids that hang out on IRC and talk about whatever it is other kids talk about has dried up. Twitter is not a replacement. Facebook is not a replacement. Those services are localist. They focus on the people you know in your town.

When you have nobody to talk to books become your conversation partners. Stacks of them in a sort of personal library. What F. T. Marinetti called "Public dormitories where you sleep side by side for ever with beings you hate or do not know.". You start to hate yourself for not reading them. You start to hate yourself for reading them. You desperately want to talk about what you are reading yet you know it is boring and nobody wants to listen.

The loneliness starts to break you. It eats away at your sanity. You start daydreaming of smashing the monitor that glows against your face in the night. Throwing the books from piles into the walls their pages slamming into drawers and dressers. Pages litter the floor as you step forward to the CRT television and knock it from the stand. Blood trails behind your step as the glass cuts your feet coagulating into a pool around you. Sitting in the fetal position against the wall of that destroyed room looking up at the face of your shocked mother.

"Son, I think you need to see a doctor." she says in an almost whisper.

"I know" you whisper back.

ddoolin• 13 years ago

The article states that the expert thinks it's a problem in Korea and Italy, too. I can't speak for Italy as I've never been there, but it is definitely not common in Korea. Yes, Koreans live with their parents until they're married, typically, and yes, some Korean males are kind of shut-ins, but it's definitely not a phenomenon here like it is with our neighbors across the East Sea.

I can't say for certain what caused the differences between Japan and Korea despite the countries have very similar cultural and historical backgrounds, including economically, but for whatever reason that's kind of unheard of here.

bane3• 13 years ago

I agree, I'm definitely familiar with 20-something relatives having trouble entering the workforce in Korea, but I've never heard of this particular phenomenon there. I've heard of different issues, like PC bbang/gaming addictions and the occasional shut-ins.

It feels like all the pieces are in place for a Hikikomori-like phenomenon to hit in Korea, but somehow conditions are just different enough it doesn't happen. It might be that the cultural pressures to get a job and get married (and get out of the house) are just ever so slightly stronger. It also doesn't hurt that it seems more socially acceptable to seek employment outside of salarymanship to Chaebol. Sometimes I think it seems like every person in Korea has tried to start their own business at least once.

protez• 13 years ago

They were discouraged and discouraged and discouraged, as if they were conditioned to be discouraged. They've decided to escape the loop altogether, by shutting off the sources of discouragement, or social interactions.

WhoIsSatoshi3• 13 years ago

This isn't only in Japan, it is a phenomenon that is spreading across the globe. Japan is first hit because of the strong disparities between generations. Truth is, the internet brought about a lot of things so one could have a constant "window out" from a single room. Most of us know precisely what I am talking about.

I would like to theorize that this is only one of the things that facilitate such isolation by making it more tolerable. What pushes people IN is the social reflection. Misfits often get shunned for being different. Tack all that on top of the social networks and the compound strength can be overwhelming: This generation is the first generation EVER to get to observe first-hand how their failure compares to their 5th grade friend Jimbo, who's now a doctor. And Suzan has had 2 kids. Meanwhile Jack constantly posts pictures of his new cars on sites X,Y,Z. That doesn't help your self esteem when you see everyone happy and you're lonely. Back in the days, your dad might have messed up for 3 years, but the stigma never stuck because (1) people did not have proof from the network itself and (2) he was able to "snap out of it" because he wasn't constantly reminded of others great lives (and by comparison how miserable he was) - those things would get ushered behind the blinds of hearsay, they'd be on the very periphery of your life. But now all of those haunt you, via Facebook feed and other social medias, where subconsciously we mostly try to advertise our successes. I think it is time for psychiatry to wake up to this. I fear it will take another 50-100 years for this to be understood.

I wish the world would wake up and realize that WE as a society are malfunctioning and that the burden to support each-others falls on all.

wisty2• 13 years ago

It doesn't help that a lot of people only post good stuff to Facebook. "Pictures of wife and I celebrating our anniversary!". They don't then say "We both screamed at each other for 3 hours, just after the photo was taken."

WhoIsSatoshi3• 13 years ago

I have this friend who manages to do just the opposite. He complains that his life sucks, that he needs a job and that he's lonely and wishes he'd meet someone. This of course has the adverse effect on people: it makes them keep their distance because you're "anti-social" or a "downer". Pretty creepy to realize that your whole life can be affected so much by what you see of the world... and what the world sees of you. Television probably had a lesser impact previously, but we're entering a whole new level of social superficiality.

TazeTSchnitzel• 13 years ago

Facebook is depressing to people like me precisely because it allows you to compare your lowlights tto an endless stream of others' highlights.

paganel• 13 years ago

Back in the days, your dad might have messed up for 3 years, but the stigma never stuck because (1) people did not have proof from the network itself and (2) he was able to "snap out of it" because he wasn't constantly reminded of others great lives

I'm with you on this, my dad has actually remained "messed up" financially- and career-wise, even though he was a brilliant student and young civil construction engineer back in the day. Of course I love him and think of him as one of the smartest and most intelligent people I have ever talked to, but I cringe at the thought of what would have happened to him on an emotional level if he were to had access to Facebook, for the reasons you describe above (he and mom live in the countryside now, I've brought them an old PC some time ago but thought it best not to install them Internet).

For a possible solution, I think that at some point we will be forced to retreat from this online social mess we've become entangled in, if not by our own will maybe at least our subconscious will force us to. Could be that it's all just a craze.

WhoIsSatoshi3• 13 years ago

It could all be a craze, but I'm worried it's only the beginning of a new world order - And the last resort of this society is its most unlikely candidate: the geeks and nerds that have since times past been shunned and excluded (oh the irony!)

We have to manage a personal shift beyond that - then the people who won't let the bad weigh on their shoulder or get used to the good making their life easier will be able to exist beyond appearances, and find substance in things. I can see EST coming back in force within the next 50 years.

ck2• 13 years ago

According to that article it's not just men, only 53% of them are male.

bane3• 13 years ago

So is this distinct enough from regular 'ol depression that it qualifies as a culture-bound syndrome like Taijin kyofusho?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture-bound_syndrome

spoiler• 13 years ago

It's a bit hurtful that they would say "teenage laziness," when it could be depression.

It started when I was 12 (probably). I slowly started losing interest in doing things that I enjoyed, even more so about the things I didn't enjoy doing. By the time I was 15 I stopped caring about my future and from a straight A student I became a C/D student. When I started high school that I wanted (we have similar requirements for HS as you would need for college or university in Croatia) things were better for about a year, but I started to fade and become "numb" again. This continued throughout HS, but since my HS was mostly about sciences (physics, maths, computer science) and linguistics, so my grades didn't suffer because I found the topics interesting.

I am a freshman & 20 years old. I am doing better because I sought help, while everyone I lived with (mum and grandmother) thought I was just a lazy, worthless do-no-good. I should also mention that my mum has an "abusive personality," which probably contributed to my depression (and is hindering recovery, in all fairness).

I was lucky to have a best friend since kindergarten, who was observant enough to notice my mental and physical deterioration and supported me to find help (to paraphrase: "i will beat the fuck out of you if you don't get yourself checked for some shit").

I was diagnosed with MDD (Major depressive disorder). I wouldn't say I am good, yet, but I am better than I was a few years ago and I haven't thought about suicide for almost 2 months now (which I did, for 4/7 days, six months ago).

TL;DR: When you are depressed, it seems like the air is thick and heavy, it seems like every ray of light is trying to push you down onto your shadow, it seems like every movement you do is being countered by an invisible force and requires you to use more energy. All your thoughts are polluted with a dark tint. You have no dreams, no hopes, no desires. You just wish to escape. Maybe they are not lazy? Maybe hiding in their rooms are the early attempts of escape, and nobody is noticing their silent cries for help.

P. S: Sorry for the long&sad post.

bane3• 13 years ago

P. S: Sorry for the long&sad post.

It's not sad since you sought help! Keep it up, you only have great things to look forward to!

hkmurakami8• 13 years ago

P. S: Sorry for the long&sad post.

I think it's good for us, whether we've been blessed to have never had to deal with such demons or we've recovered from our own dark times, to be reminded of the fact that there are people out there who are quite like us in most ways who are having a very hard time living from one day to the next.

I'm of the "since recovered" camp and even then, sometimes I forget about the struggles I have had and fail to be as empathetic and understanding as I could be.

I'm always grateful when others are willing to share their not so proudest moments and let us have a peek into their struggles and troubles. It sets me straight again.

So thanks.

martincmartin• 13 years ago

"Lazy" is also what kids with ADHD are labelled. I think "lazy" is a cop-out explanation, since it doesn't actually explain anything. Often the incentives are aligned so that it's in the kid's best interest to put some effort into homework. If they're not doing it, treat it like a debugging program: why aren't they responding to the incentives? Could be depression, ADHD, perfectionism/fear of failure, or a bunch of other things.

laumars6• 13 years ago

You definitely do get some kids that are lazy though. And I know this because I was one of them. I should have made more of an effort at school, but instead I coasted on natural ability. Which has meant that I'd had to put double the effort in later life to make up for the advantage I should have given myself at school.

However I do agree with you that we shouldn't be branding kids as "lazy" without investigation first.

ghc• 13 years ago

They're not mutually exclusive. I was ADHD diagnosed, but I'm also lazy. Even medication didn't make me less lazy. But then I became a Haskell programmer, and now "laziness is a virtue."

edit: Not making light of ADHD or my own struggles. Medication and self-awareness helped me improve from a B/C student into an A student. But I do find that as an adult I'm able to function without medication because instead of constant studying for tests I'm constantly learning and applying my knowledge.

MattDL• 13 years ago

Trust me, laziness is a real thing; even when everything in the world points towards doing the work being the best thing for you, you just can't be bothered.

saraid216• 13 years ago

I think "lazy" is a cop-out explanation, since it doesn't actually explain anything.

In response to sibling comments, I want to QFT this. Laziness, as a diagnosis, has no explanatory power. It's a useless descriptor. It doesn't tell you how to fix it. You can self-diagnose as lazy all you like: that's, wait for it, intellectual laziness.

mathrawka3• 13 years ago

Congrats on not only seeking help (and keeping a solid friend that stuck with you through the trying down times), but your 2 month streak, may it never end!

pfortuny• 13 years ago

Man you're a hero and your friend is another one. Thanks for posting this and really keep up the good job and the effort. Remind yourself that your feelings are NOT what matter, but your person.

It is not a sad post: it is hard and REAL. Your life is relevant.

Thanks for the post & my prayers are with you.

bitsoda• 13 years ago

This hit like a ton of bricks. There are days when I could easily identify with these Japanese men. On the days where I'm more outgoing, confident, and social, I've noticed that feeling productive -- and what I deem to be "happiness" -- go hand-in-hand. It could be something as simple as helping a friend set up their wireless router or tutoring my niece in math. It's almost as if I allow myself to be a part of society once I feel like I've earned it -- as silly as this may sound to those who haven't experienced this phenomenon. Ultimately, and I'm not saying it's a panacea, but what never fails for me is to attain some feeling of productivity or importance.

When I was a kid, my dad told me something that has always stuck with me: "Pretend like everyone you meet has the following sentence stamped on their forehead: 'I want to feel important'".

trendoid• 13 years ago

I wonder what are the implications of introducing Buddhist teachings in school. What is the optimal way to introduce them so that they sink in well ? They directly target that stamp on everyone's forehead(among many other things that are wrong about society) and even though neuroscience is saying basically the same thing nowadays, for some reason most people will listen more to how Buddha expressed.

Obviously, one doesnt necessarily have to introduce them as buddhist teachings but part of some moral or character building course. Parents dont have enough time to look into all this stuff and by the time psychologists come to the scene, its already too late.

rschmitty• 13 years ago

Maybe they are searching for James Halliday's Easter Egg?

PaulHoule• 13 years ago

In America we call this social phobia.

cobolorum• 13 years ago

Well, I highly doubt that generational social issues are going to stay confined to Japan, and I would argue that they are already common around the world at large. Here in the West, people ranging from 18 to 30 are seeing higher unemployment and higher debt levels as educational costs rise. A lot of us visiting this site may not see this as unemployment within the IT sector is not as high as other sectors, but many of my friends fit the category of highly educated and unemployed.

A few of my friends have taken to getting 3 part time pink collar jobs to try and make it on their own. They sleep maybe 4 hours each night, a little more on weekends. Some would argue that this problem is related to degrees that are not useful in the job market, but in older generations only 1/3 of the population had attended college... yet those over 60 hold over 3/4 of the USA's wealth.

hikigo• 13 years ago

I have to admit I was frightened when I heard of hikikomori. I am not Japanese, but I have a tendency for staying at home, sometimes for as much as a couple or three days. I thought I might be or end up like them.

I have what you would call a successfull full-time job as a programmer and my tendency for staying home was so that I could hack on things I wanted. The pressure however to try and stay ahead of the curve has always been there. Some of it came from parents and society (I'm not American either) but I would say most of it came from me seeing no future ahead of me if I got stuck at the country I was from. I would have gotten by, but I doubt I'd be happy. I'd be on a grim path. I probably felt I was a bit ahead of this curve to not be affected, but now that I'm getting older (35) I'm starting to wonder if I really fenced it off. I'm still unmarried and like to stay home; just in a different country.

What makes it hard for me to connect is not a presence of pressure to do well, but a lack of authenticity in people or events going around in the several places I've lived in the US. I'm talking about a connection. Even as a teenager I would feel some sort of connection with people around me. Now it seems there isn't enough of a will in people to do the same. Whatever dense ingredient was there has now dissipated or distributed over by time or a larger moving population.

When I read of hikikomori, I ended up writing a blog/site to record such connections. Here it is if you find it useful: hikigo com. I like these small reminders that there's enough beauty if you care enough to observe it. I never posted this site anywhere until now, because the anonymity of it is what i like most about it - as a sort of protest to the social Facebook pressure.

I hope it stays that way.

evangineer• 13 years ago

The challenge seems to be in finding or creating friendship circles with similar or compatible values/outlook. In a busy fragmented society, you have to work in a deliberate and persistent way at that. I've concluded that a key thing to do is to pursue my passions and find IRL communities that share them.

cookiecat• 13 years ago

The cultural factors mentioned in the article all sound plausible; I wonder if it has anything to do with https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink

api2• 13 years ago

I am ignorant of the deep aspects of Japanese culture, but my suspicion is that it's a high-pressure society that uses shame heavily in the false belief that shame is a motivator. In reality excessive shame generally produces withdrawal, demotivation, and depression.

Combine this with the demographics -- it's very hard for young people to work their way up in an elder-dominated culture -- and you have a recipe for irrational expectations followed by shame and withdrawal.

That's my outsider suspicion.

federicola2• 13 years ago

because they are afraid of z-day :)

federicola2• 13 years ago

because they are preparing for the z-day :)

michaelochurch3• 13 years ago

The trigger for a boy retreating to his bedroom might be comparatively slight - poor grades or a broken heart, for example - but the withdrawal itself can become a source of trauma. And powerful social forces can conspire to keep him there.

My observation is that mental illness often has a hurricane-like property wherein the storm is bearable but the social fallout (looting, arson, opportunistic crime) afterward is far more destructive. The disease itself is unpleasant but bearable. People are not.

In a high-stress society like corporate life in the U.S. or Japan, everyone will have deviances from perfect mental function. One would wish for them to have negative autocorrelation (self-correction). Instead, those deviations are often pushed further by external forces. Sometimes it's intentional (ambitious rivals want to thin out competition) but normally it's just an artifact of the stupid stigmas around these diseases. ("He's depressed, not a team player.")

People really don't understand these problems. They think a "panic attack" is that time they hit a heart rate of 120 because they drank too much caffeine before a deadline. No, that's not panic (that's mild anxiety). Panic attacks throw about 50 different symptoms (you have to have a few before you see them all) of which any one of them would feel like an acute, life-threatening crisis to a sane person. Almost everyone who has a true panic attack will end up in the ER, the first time. You have to cycle through all of the bizarre symptoms a few times before you realize that the attacks aren't dangerous. Once you've learned this, they're just annoying ("shit, there goes the next 10 minutes") but the first few attacks are devastating because they feel real.

I also think that the corporate world creates laziness and depression, not in the blase Dilbert sense, but because people who are conditioned to associate work with subordination turn either into disengaged clock-punchers (steal from the system, because it will steal from you) or useless, delegating executives. We think our society values work, but given the increasing association between work and subordination, isn't that indicative of the opposite?

Society effectively programs people to lose motivation and shut down, then stigmatizes people who do so-- whether because of conditioning or an unrelated biological problem-- even if it's only for a week or two. I think the "test" of the dues-paying grunt work is whether a person can keep going in spite of recurring negative signals (subordination, artificially delayed advancement, repetitive busy-work without the leeway to automate it or render it unnecessary) but the truth is that that's a stupid fucking test.

alinajaf• 13 years ago

Panic attacks throw about 50 different symptoms (you have to have a few before you see them all) of which any one of them would feel like an acute, life-threatening crisis to a sane person. Almost everyone who has a true panic attack will end up in the ER, the first time. You have to cycle through all of the bizarre symptoms a few times before you realize that the attacks aren't dangerous. Once you've learned this, they're just annoying ("shit, there goes the next 10 minutes") but the first few attacks are devastating because they feel real.

I've never suffered from a panic attack, but my wife does, and regularly. This describes our situation almost exactly. The symptoms are diverse enough to be congruent with everything from acid reflux to a full blown heart attack.

The attacks are milder now primarily because she started timing them and now knows going into one that they'll be over in ten to twenty minutes. Not knowing that leads to the spiral of despair, where you become more and more anxious because you don't know how this panic attack is going to end.

vijucat• 13 years ago

I noticed a gender focus : why are so many Japanese MEN refusing to leave their rooms?

I found a research report on the topic which basically seems to say that Hikikomori women are probably labeled as "Parasite Singles" rather than Hikikomori, but if the two sets of youth were considered as one, the distribution by gender would be closer to 50:50 rather than the impression that the media serves to give that is is almost always a man : http://towakudai.blogs.com/Hikikomori_as_Gendered_Issue.pdf

keithflower• 13 years ago

From a medical perspective, I'd worry that many of these folks suffer from major depressive disorder, social anxiety disorder, or obsessive compulsive disorder.

This is not to pathologize behaviors people choose which don't interfere with quality of life, but my gut reaction is that many of those described in the article would benefit from treatment with psychotherapy and/or medication. However, I'm told that significant stigma is attached to seeking evaluation and treatment for such issues in Japan (and obviously elsewhere, including the west).

coroxout• 13 years ago

Granted that applying a layperson's understanding of a DSM category to people I've never met from a completely alien culture is a pointless and possibly crass task, but reading through this I was thinking of avoidant personality disorder: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoidant_personality_disorder#S...

teeja• 13 years ago

Reminds me of Bartleby the Scriviner.

I'd guess that the widespread "major depression" aspect may be based in an acute perception (may or not be accurate or accurately portrayed) of what life is like for many Nippon men.

Thankless and sweatshop-like work, heavy drinking, the high value of socialization and lack of individuation. Not a surprise, then if "most men lead lives of quiet desperation" as they did when Thoreau recognized the fact.

If this is happening to young teens (sad) maybe they cannot see a "road less travelled". Homogenization of options is not good for everyone's mental health.

adomsed• 13 years ago

Asians in general have a high probability of genetically having less Oxytocin receptors. Oxytocin affects levels of self-esteem and optimism. It also has a strong effect on whether stress causes a person to withdraw from social situations or to seek help from others. It also affects empathy in a society.

The withdrawal symptoms shown in this article, and subsequent scorn by Japanese society (rather than sympathy) could be a indicator of this genetic predisposition.

Here is a breakdown of oxytocin receptiveness across some common racial groups. The more G's you have, the more resilient and social you are.

http://browser.1000genomes.org/Homo_sapiens/Variation/Popula...

Also the wikipedia article on oxytocin might be of interest for anyone who has Aspergers or Autistic tendencies.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin

It's interesting to ponder Oxytocin's effect on Asian culture as a whole... confucianism, book smarts, wrote memorization, suffer in silence, etc.

Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms?

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