
Japan home to 541,000 young recluses - mattnumbe
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/09/07/national/japan-home-541000-young-recluses-survey-finds/#.V9CqR1t961s
======
adamnemecek
This is fundamentally a failure of the education system. It's coming to the
West as well. Schools force you to waste some of the most productive years
learning about pretty useless things and are super inefficient at that too.
What else can you do when you graduate and you don't really know anything
about the world, can't really contribute to society and on every step you are
reminded of being a failure.

The worst part is that it will take decades for society to fix this.

~~~
IANAD
Did anyone notice that it is 0.4 percent of Japan's population?

As of 2010, about 2 percent of the U.S. adult population have a severe form of
social phobia and have trouble leaving their house, according to the National
Institutes of Mental Health: [http://www.livescience.com/16216-outgoing-shy-
personality-na...](http://www.livescience.com/16216-outgoing-shy-personality-
nature-nurture.html)

It's not coming to the west. It's more here than there.

I don't know about it being the fault of the education system, though.

~~~
joshuahaglund
The number is limited to people aged 15-39. I can't figure out what percent
that is, maybe someone with a wolfram alpha pro account can do it:

[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+japan+be...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+japan+between+ages+15+and+39)

Also, having trouble leaving the house vs: _The Health, Labor and Welfare
Ministry defines hikikomori as people who have stayed at home for at least six
months without going to school or work, or going out to interact with others._

~~~
guroot
You just have to phrase it correctly:
[https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+japan+ag...](https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=population+of+japan+aged+15+to+39)

It's 4.75% according to alpha based on a 2010 estimate.

~~~
antmldr
I think that's the 15-19 age group...

~~~
guroot
Ah, you're right I didn't look closely at the results. derp

------
pmyjavec
If you've ever traveled to Japan and stayed with a "Salaryman", it might help
explain why some people have trouble "adjusting to work life".

This guy I stayed with got about 5, maybe 6 hours sleep a night, worked 12
hour days (at least), and would be required to participate in mandatory social
activities, such as attending a hostess bar and drinking.

In Europe and Netherlands, this guys work conditions would be considered
_extreme_ and in the case of Australia, probably illegal.

I'm not saying that there isn't other factors like education and economics at
play, but the way I saw pepople living, falling asleep on the train and not
getting proper sleep, looked pretty unappealing to me.

It doesn't feel like there is anything _wrong_ with these people at all.

~~~
a_bonobo
I've been reading Zielenziger's Shutting Out The Sun on the hikkikomori
phenomenon, and among many depressing story there's one that stuck out:

a father, mother and their early 20s hikkikomori son were sharing an
apartment, with their son having very little communication with his parents.
One day he burst out to his mother: 'Why did you divorce my father?' The
mother answered that they did not divorce, it's just that the father leaves
for work before the son wakes up and returns from work after the son goes to
bed.

~~~
new299
I don't get it. What about weekends. Or the (frequent) national holidays? I've
never heard of people in Japan being forced to work regularly on weekends or
on national holidays that would be pretty strange in my experience (though
long working hours less strange of course).

~~~
nkoren
I lived for several years at an architectural project in Arizona (Arcosanti).
At one point, a young Japanese architect came to study there. The first week
of the workshop is quite intense, full of academic activities, which she
excelled at.

On the weekend, the workshoppers rented a van and drove it up to Sedona, where
they went hiking. After a few hours on the trail, she suddenly broke down
sobbing. Eventually we got the story out of her: between architecture school
and a job which began the day after graduation, she'd been working six and a
half days per week, without ever taking a holiday or even a sick day, for over
five years. This was her first fully free day in all that time. It was
evidently completely overwhelming for her, like being released from a long
prison sentence.

Obviously that's just one data point, and perhaps architecture isn't
representative of other professions, but there you go.

~~~
new299
That's a pretty interesting datapoint though thanks. It's possible I've just
not met a wide enough group of people.

Think back though, my wife had a friend (engineer) who had been working
solidly for 30 days without a break. I guess stretches like that do happen.

------
imaginology
Why is this a problem? What's wrong with living a reclusive life, if that's
what you want to do?

I live alone and don't go outside unless I have to buy food. I work online,
and make electronic music and play video games when I'm not working. It's how
I choose to live my life and don't see anything wrong with it.

~~~
TkTech
They ain't making babies - ignore that they may or may not be producing value
via online work.

That's 541k individuals and rising that are not going to reproduce in a nation
whose majority population is aging[1] and whose overall population is
projected to collapse by almost 15% in 2050. Imagine 40% of your population
being 65+. With a TRF of 1.7, that's over 1 million potential young
replacements that are missing from the economy. Many people in Japan are
terrified of the increasing _trend_ if not necessarily the number of current
individuals.

Declining birth rates are the norm in the west and the simple solution to that
is immigration. That doesn't work so well in Japan, which while perfectly
polite to visitors is in many places extremely homogeneous and they like to
keep it that way.

[1]: [http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-
investor/retirement/ret...](http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-
investor/retirement/retire-planning/how-japan-is-coping-with-a-rapidly-aging-
population/article27259703/)

[2]:
[http://www.japantimes.co.jp/tag/population/](http://www.japantimes.co.jp/tag/population/)

[3]: [http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/opinion/sunday/without-
bab...](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/opinion/sunday/without-babies-can-
japan-survive.html?_r=0)

~~~
stale2002
Sucks for them. Maybe they will get over their xenophobia and start letting in
immigrants once their problems get bad enough.

Racism is both bad AND stupid, and I think it is hilarious for them to be
suffering the consequences of their stupidity.

~~~
Bakary
Aren't being yourself xenophobic by castigating them for having different
values?

Theit system has a number of problems but it also has a number of advantages.

Besides, the countries who do let in immigrants are less xenophobic but not by
a wide margin.

~~~
stale2002
So culturally relativism basically?

I'm xenophobic by denouncing xenophobia?

Xenophobia is just another cultural value and if I disagree with it them IM
the xenophobe?

~~~
Bakary
You equated racism and xenophobia with a lack of desire for immigrants. Those
are quite different concepts, even if there is an overlap.

Furthermore, you condemned an entire nation and wished harm upon them on the
basis of a perceived breach of your own values, which I might add are not
completely clear to me.

It doesn't have much to do with cultural relativism, but with the assumption
that you know what's good for Japan better than they do.

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

------
wje
There's a solo pen and paper RPG called Hikikomori (named after the
phenomenon) which is quite unsettling to play.

[http://dsg.neko-machi.com/hikikomori.pdf](http://dsg.neko-
machi.com/hikikomori.pdf)

~~~
prawn
Someone should make that as an app or web site. I think it'd be interesting
for more people to experience it, and something less reliant on having dice
and checking tables would be more accessible.

~~~
wccrawford
I agree that it sounds like a great web app (I had the same thought) but I
think you need to be careful not to be too hand-holdy. Half the game is the
journaling of the situation, and if you too hand-holdy I think you lose a lot
of the impetus to do the journaling. Or at least to do it well.

Still, I'm definitely considering it for this one, or something like it.

~~~
prawn
I think that even without the journaling, it could give some insight into
social phobia, depression and malaise.

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

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

~~~
Analemma_
There's a theory out there, "to see what the West will look like in 10-20
years, look at Japan today". It's most commonly applied to economics
(permanent low growth, low inflation and ZIRP) and demographics (falling birth
rate), but I think it's true of the NEET and hikikomori phenomena as well.

The "unemployed young male who just plays video games" demographic that
recently got a writeup in the WSJ certainly seems to parallel Japan's NEETs.
With hikikomori, it's more anecdotal, but when I flick through my Tumblr feed
I feel like I see a _lot_ of people who state outright that they just can't
function outside. I think in a few more years it will be noticeable enough
that we can say it's happening here "for real"

~~~
sotojuan
> when I flick through my Tumblr feed I feel like I see a lot of people who
> state outright that they just can't function outside.

I'm going to sound rude and this is out of anecdotal experience (and I know
some people actually can't function outside) but you should be careful when
people on Tumblr say that. I've found most are just bored or lonely teenagers
who self-diagnose themselves random things like Aspergers, ADHD, depression,
etc. for whatever reason (sometimes for a valid reason related to
family/household dysfunction, other times just to appear more interesting and
to fit in online). When I used Tumblr five or so years ago I remember
following these people and the ones I kept in touch with well, to sound rude
again, grew out of it.

------
lscore720
This is often depression from failure to meet early career expectations. The
Japanese, like many Asian cultures, are a highly driven society where career
goals are set very early in life by the parents. In such a competitive
society, failure to secure a highly sought after starting job with a good
company, after attending some of the best colleges & universities, is a social
stigma, and causes withdrawal from friends and family members. Prolonged
withdrawal often turns into a real clinical depression. The protective nature
of the Asian family allows this withdrawal from society to continue longer
than initially planned, and soon their motivation to move forward in life is
lost. Prolonged lack of work becomes hard to explain in resumes and job
interviews, which further perpetuates this unfortunate phenomena.

This societal situation combined with Japans's extreme economic shift (from
miracle economy to great stagnation)to create this perfect storm that is
Hikikomori.

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

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

------
jackcosgrove
Cultural critics like to blame individuals for behavior like this, but in
Japan's case it's mostly economic.

Japan's economy was export dependent for a long time. The Japanese would
manufacture more than they consumed and sell the surplus to the world. This
ended when the Asian Tigers repeated the strategy at lower cost. Meanwhile
asset prices inflated wildly because people thought the good times would never
end. Which they did in the early 90s.

With demand for Japan's surplus product less, and assets overpriced, Japan had
to begin a painful process of deflation. I think house prices fell for over 20
years after the bubble burst.

Japan's economy began to bifurcate after this, with the remaining good jobs
going to the best students and the other students left with temporary jobs.
The stakes are high for Japanese students.

Fundamentally, the Japanese islands are crowded and not very resource rich.
Exporting finished goods allowed the population to grow above the economic
carrying capacity of the land, and now the population is falling to adjust to
the new reality.

If Japan still had a go-go economy like it did in the 70s and 80s, I doubt
there would be as many recluses.

~~~
pmyjavec
So other countries probably have a lot to learn from this by the sound of it?

~~~
hx87
Lesson #1: Don't try to preserve social harmony by delaying indefinitely the
consequences of bad company decisions. Clean up quickly and effectively
instead.

It seems like most countries have learned the lesson (or have never had to)
and avoided the mistakes Japan has made, although the EU is headed in vaguely
similar directions.

------
twoquestions
I can understand why these people are like this. As other people said, only
the very top jobs and graduates count for anything, if you're not elite you
may as well drop dead. This is starting to happen in other economies too, but
I digress.

Also, the amount of what I'll call "social bullshit" is piled high (if you
have a better, less provocative term, let me know). What is said is very far
away from what is meant, and if you can't peel away the onion of social
bullshit to discover what people really mean, communication is very difficult.
Even playing patio11's game Stockfighter was very difficult for me to
understand the directions, as the space between what you're supposed to do and
what he suggests to do is very large (to me).

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

~~~
SimpleXYZ
It must be nice knowing the "correct" way to live.

~~~
tdb7893
I feel like for such a fundamentally social animal eschewing social
interactions is not good. If other social animals (e.g. dogs) exhibit similar
behaviours I would assume that they are sick somehow or they had some trauma.
You can get social interactions from the internet but in my experience (and
also from observing others) it's much harder for those to be fulfilling and it
seems harder for people who get their interactions this way to be happy.

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

------
okwhatthe2
This seems relevant:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_futility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_futility)

Futility being the key term.

------
cairo_x
In Japan you're not mentally ill, you're a recluse.

In Russia you're not homosexual, you're a paedophile.

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

------
ubik
Coming next: white America

------
unimportant
I'm a recluse myself. Modern society has little to offer to most men that
aren't top tier earners, looks etc.

You'll live in some shit tier city because you aren't making enough to move
somewhere nice (or can't get a work visa), people around you are aggressive
low IQ proles in Europe - always looking to pick fights (see
[https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1713078/moments-after-photo-
of...](https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1713078/moments-after-photo-of-teenage-
gang-was-taken-an-innocent-polish-man-arek-jozwik-was-beaten-to-death/) ), if
you aren't an aggressive muscular guy you'll just get some fugly harpy who
will "settle" for you. There's just nothing in it for me.

I have been to Japan and the society is fairly autistic. People are polite but
want to stay in their own little bubble. You could collapse on the street in
Tokyo and nobody would give a shit if you don't block the entrance of a
business. In the outskirts of Tokyo people live in bleak housing blocks that
already look depressing from far away that make modern condos look like
masterpieces.

Think this ten times the size:
[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Cwmbran_...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Cwmbran_tower_block.jpg)

The society is super hierarchical, with old people being on top and young
people earning almost nothing, jobs being hard to come by, guys not getting
girlfriends / wifes cause strong independent women don't need no man and
socializing with random people outside the internet is highly uncommon as
well.

If I was in Japan I would be a recluse as well.

EDIT: Bring on the downvotes. I miss the usenet days where people actually had
similar opinions to me and it was still a 99% male space where women were
universally hated - long before fuckbook, twatter and young engineered
brainwashed by colleges into becoming social justice warriors.

~~~
MicroBerto
> I'm a recluse myself. Modern society has little to offer to most men that
> aren't top tier earners, looks etc.

I fully respect that you have figured this out (because you're absolutely not
wrong), but have you ever considered trying to _become_ a top-tier male? Like,
throw in a _serious_ year or two of hard work, weightlifting, social skills
improvement, cooking, grooming, study, wardrobe, etc etc, to see how the other
side lives?

It's not "easy", but now I'm just wondering... since you've figured out that
modern society has nothing to offer such men, which most men will NEVER truly
understand, why not become the opposite?

~~~
htns
He might be very short or disfigured.

~~~
MicroBerto
Ugh, I hate the height excuse. That might be offensive since I'm 6'0, but I
know plenty of crazy 'successful' short guys. Is it a disadvantage? Of course.
But nothing that can't be worked around.

Glad people like Ronnie James Dio didn't wimp out at their dreams because they
weren't tall. But how many Ronnie James Dio's have we _not_ had a chance to
enjoy because they thought less of themselves? I hate it.

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

~~~
MollyR
Are you suggesting endocrine disruptors are affecting mental health ? That
would be an interesting study. Especially since we have research suggesting
the gut(microbiome) plays a role in mental health.

