
Hikikomori: Why are so many Japanese men refusing to leave their rooms? - akandiah
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23182523
======
rangibaby
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...

~~~
erre
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)

~~~
api
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.

~~~
gohrt
> The single most powerful life extension technology ever developed is the
> cardiac bypass, for example.

How do you mean that?

[http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/03/a-cardiac-
conundrum](http://harvardmagazine.com/2013/03/a-cardiac-conundrum)

> Angioplasty can save the lives of heart-attack patients. But for patients
> with stable coronary disease, who comprise a large share of angioplasty
> patients? It has not been shown to extend life expectancy by a day

~~~
Groxx
They state "save the lives of heart-attack patients". That (partially)
supports the statement, since saving a life is definitely increasing their
lifespan.

The rest of the quote is stating the inverse though, that not all angioplasty
recipients live longer (converse? meh, you know what I mean). And that it
might be over-proscribed. Neither of those have anything to do with it's
ability to prolong life in other cases.

------
jayfuerstenberg
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
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?

~~~
hkmurakami
_> 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!

------
spoiler
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.

~~~
martincmartin
"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.

~~~
MattDL
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.

~~~
mikeash
Of course it's a real thing. He never said it wasn't. What he said was that it
doesn't explain anything, and that's true.

Laziness is a _symptom_ , not a cause. It's like diagnosing someone with a
"cough". It may be correct, but it's pointless, because it's obvious and tells
you absolutely _nothing_ about what to do.

~~~
diminoten
At what point is a personality merely a symptom? If everything about us is a
result of our ailments, and all of our ailments have treatments, how does a
person know which parts of his personality are him and which aren't? What am
"I" then?

~~~
chunky1994
I would probably say that we can classify our personality as the difference in
sets of what anyone with our ability and in the same situation would do, and
what we do.

That being said, our ailments could probably be categorized by affecting all
aspects of our life equally and in full measure of time (i.e something that
doesn't fluctuate across the years is probably an untreated ailment).

------
eksith
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).

~~~
ekianjo
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.

~~~
laumars
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.

~~~
eksith

      >Japan that seems to be exported the most is the futuristic, over-populated scenes from Tokyo...
    

Flashy loving != Flashy itself.

Shiogama, for example, is primarily centered around the fishing industry. You
can imagine what my friend was compelled to get into when he had his heart set
elsewhere. Since the tsunami cut deep into the family income, he was a little
more accepting of their needs and slowly, but surely, he's growing out of it.
It may take years for him to fully integrate into society though.

Also, people need to stop thinking of Tokyo as a "city". It's big and varied
enough to be a "county" in the Western sense.

~~~
laumars
_> Flashy loving != Flashy itself._

I was only quoting the previous commenter there :)

 _> Shiogama, for example, is primarily centered around the fishing industry.
You can imagine what my friend was compelled to get into when he had his heart
set elsewhere. Since the tsunami cut deep into the family income, he was a
little more accepting of their needs and slowly, but surely, he's growing out
of it. It may take years for him to fully integrate into society though._

That was actually my point. That there's a whole side to Japan that isn't like
the western culture perceives.

 _> Also, people need to stop thinking of Tokyo as a "city". It's big and
varied enough to be a "county" in the Western sense._

To be fair, that's true for many large cities - even in the west.

------
WhoIsSatoshi
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.

~~~
wisty
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."

~~~
WhoIsSatoshi
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.

~~~
wisty
Yeah, overshare can work both ways. All your friends are either having a
fantastic time, or their life is ruined. Both can be a bit depressing to
watch.

~~~
michaelochurch
_All your friends are either having a fantastic time, or their life is ruined.
Both can be a bit depressing to watch._

If you find it depressing that they're having a "fantastic time", then they
aren't your friends in any meaningful sense.

This isn't directed at you. Envy is a stigmatized but natural human emotion.
(I rarely feel direct envy, but who doesn't second-guess the path they've
taken? It's very easy to look for greener grass and say, "Man, I could be a
_Director_ now instead of a 3-failed-startup wash-out", never mind that the
other person is Director of a failing, bland company.) Everyone gets down when
they see other people having easy, seemingly unearned success-- and
oversharers tend to be the hypersocial people who make their successes look
even _more_ unearned (it being better, in their view, to be well-liked and
socially successful than talented or hard-working).

My point, rather, is that if these people's successes get you down, they
aren't _friends_ in any meaningful sense. And social network "friendship" is
anything but in many cases, since many people are trying to incite envy to
validate their own choices and results.

Most of my real friends I never check on Facebook.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
Plenty of people are jealous of our actual friends _sometimes_. There's just
still a difference between, "Damn, I wish I had a nice apartment like Miles
does" and "Wow, fuck you Miles, posting pics of your snooty-ass new
apartment".

You can be jealous of the good experience without letting it poison your
liking for the person.

------
jmduke
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.)

~~~
tankbot
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.

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

~~~
hkmurakami
That manga probably takes things too lightheartedly / humorously though so I
personally didn't find it particularly informational or revealing.

It makes up for it by being entertaining though.

------
mililani
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.

~~~
ekianjo
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.

~~~
omegant
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.

~~~
brigade
I don't think any culture really teaches how to help shut-ins, at least once
it becomes a legitimate mental health issue.

In the western world, however, parents will very quickly make their newly
reclusive child's life miserable (taking away TV, games, computers, etc.), and
even kick adult children to the curb if they refuse to support themselves. And
because this is done almost from the start, most kids aren't yet so far gone
that they can still reintegrate into society themselves, if given enough
incentive.

So a lot of potential cases don't develop severe mental health issues like
they would if left alone.

~~~
pessimizer
I think that's a bit of confirmation bias. Most healthy people who start
becoming shut-ins get a bunch of chaotic interventions and ultimatums from
family, so most of the people that you know of that ended up doing better
after being shut-ins did so after a bunch of interventions.

I feel that I've been like this at many times in my life, and it was only when
people left me alone and just helped me by _actually helping_ me that I got
better. Sometimes I just need people to make sure that I eat, that I don't
worry too much, and that I feel that there's a reason not to sleep all day.
That people think that the only constructive help is an attacking kind of
help, a kind of forceful removal of all supports to make the boat choose to
float or sink, I think is a weird cultural thing.

What if the boat has a hole in it? You might want to work on repairing that
hole before removing the supports. It's telling that the usual metaphor for
describing the ultimatum being given by the people who practice these
aggressive interventions is "Sink or Swim." Don't be either too lazy to swim
or too stupid to figure out how to swim. A boat with a hole in it, you coddle
and fix. You can't incentivize a boat to be fixed, you fix it. Would you
torture the flu out of people? Give people enough motivation by torture that
they would force their immune system to attack the flu that much harder?

Middle class people used to be sent to _sanitariums_ when they locked
themselves in rooms and stopped bathing - to rest out in a peaceful
environment, in some fresh mountain/desert/forest air. Working people got sent
to _sanatoriums_ with cinder-block walls, and only after they actually fell
physically sick. Has our society gotten productive and wealthy enough that we
can bring back sanitariums?

------
unsignedint
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...

------
bitsoda
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
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.

------
patio11
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.)

~~~
sparkie
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.

------
mathrawka
_" 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.

~~~
patio11
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.

~~~
mathrawka
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.

~~~
minikomi
Indeed. I taught English to a mid-30s lady who worked for a subsidiary of JR.
Every lesson, it was the same complaining about her job, her boss.. I
suggested that she find a new job and her reaction was complete terror. "I can
only imagine it will be worse than what I have now".

------
hikigo
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
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.

------
Kiro
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.

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

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

~~~
brador
Correct. It does not account for spouse or children.

~~~
embolism
Please do elaborate though - that figure seems about 10-20x too low.

~~~
GFischer
Maybe it assumes you already have housing, and that you live in a country with
socialized medicine.

I can see myself retiring with maybe U$ 500.000, though I'd like to have more
to afford better healthcare than my country's default (which is MUCH better
than the U.S. average, but much worse than what you can buy with money).

What my grandparents did was to rent 3 or 4 properties, and live off that.
They did so for about 20 years.

~~~
embolism
What does 'already having housing' mean? It's state provided? Even in a
country without property taxes a property you own outright will require
maintenance.

500k still seems low but might do it if you don't have rent to pay. I'd still
love to hear the original commenter explain his or her reasoning - there might
be some useful tips to learn from.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> 500k still seems low but might do it if you don't have rent to pay.

As I answered in the sibling thread, it very much depends on where you live;
$500k is, as a back-of-the-envelope calculation, about a total amount of money
an average denizen of my country will earn during lifetime, so it definitely
is more than enough to live there.

~~~
embolism
I guess that assumes your country doesn't develop rapidly and experience the
accompanying inflation of the cost of living.

------
api
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.

------
isolated
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.

------
vijucat
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](http://towakudai.blogs.com/Hikikomori_as_Gendered_Issue.pdf)

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

------
ddoolin
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.

~~~
bane
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.

------
znowi
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/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0976060/)

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

------
protez
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.

------
ekianjo
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.

~~~
casual_slacker
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.

~~~
ekianjo
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.

~~~
gwern
> Well, it's just a fiction so you can't expect it to be super realistic
> either

Why not? The author was apparently a hikikomori, so presumably he knows what
he's talking about.

------
adomsed
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...](http://browser.1000genomes.org/Homo_sapiens/Variation/Population?r=3:8803871-8804871;v=rs53576;vdb=variation;vf=40343)

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

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxytocin](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.

------
vincie
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.

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

------
cobolorum
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.

------
teeja
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.

------
keithflower
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
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...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avoidant_personality_disorder#Signs_and_symptoms)

------
ck2
According to that article it's not just men, only 53% of them are male.

------
bane
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](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture-bound_syndrome)

------
cookiecat
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](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behavioral_sink)

------
PaulHoule
In America we call this social phobia.

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

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

But yeah, ironic.

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

------
michaelochurch
_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
> 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.

------
dakimov
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.

------
federicola
because they are afraid of z-day :)

------
federicola
because they are preparing for the z-day :)

