
First government survey of hikikomori - Ultramanoid
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2019/03/29/national/613000-japan-aged-40-64-recluses-says-first-government-survey-hikikomori/
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keiferski
Funny how everyone’s response is always to suggest therapy or medication and
never to question whether the society people are escaping from is one worth
participating in.

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escherplex
It's interesting what the sense of a direct translation of hikikomori implies.
Original form is (if you have the font)

 _引き子守_

The first two characters imply someone who is _dragged along_ and the second
two refer to a _nursemaid_ suggesting nursemaid-ing someone who doesn't want
to be here. Not in defense of any such defeatist behavior but there is the
question of how (and possibly why) would you impose measures to counteract
that mindset if individuals and their support context are comfortable with it?

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brokencup
The second half of the word (the "komori" part) is not written 子守 but rather
籠り, which means "to isolate oneself".

The 引き part is less "dragged along" in this context and more "pull away from,"
so the literal meaning is "to pull away from (society) and isolate oneself."

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mjevans
It's extremely difficult to find those around me with similar interests who
actually have anything approaching 'spare time'.

Additionally, it's very difficult to be interesting without a diverse set of
different friends and experiences to be the bridge between. As a 'natural leaf
node' I find that I've been the first to get culled when others contract or
otherwise shift their time allocations for higher priority slots in their
lives.

The transaction cost of visiting friends is also affected by the size of metro
areas, traffic/lack of good transit meshes, and the insane cost of housing. It
often isn't worth leaving a small, opportunity isolated, corner of suburbia to
meet someone else if it's going to take an hour or more one way for each trip;
particularly if that's during 'rush hour' traffic hell.

Today's war for attention is insanity fueled by ad revenue and I feel like
everyone's a looser in this war.

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TheSpiceIsLife
Do we have any statistics from other countries?

The numbers given in the article suggest about 1% of the Japanese population
are hikikomori, that seems, at first glance, quite common.

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swebs
I'd imagine it would be correlated almost 1:1 with unemployment statistics,
which are very well documented.

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Ultramanoid
There are European countries with 5%, 10%, 15% unemployment numbers. It'd be
insane if they had that percentage of completely recluse population. And they
obviously don't.

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MagnumOpus
He said 1:1 correlated, not 1:1 equal. I.e. if for the sake of argument one in
five unemployed are shut-ins but nearly no employed people are, then you have
a good starting point to estimate populations.

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Causality1
Strange that Japan considers older recluse becoming more common than younger
recluses a new development. That is the opposite of the stereotype on the
West, where the "old hermit" is a longstanding archetype.

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patrickg_zill
I always have the "mouse utopia" experiment in the back of my mind when I read
this kind of story...

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mixedmath
I think about this too. For those who don't know the reference, I recommend
reading [1].

What happened is that Dr. John Calhoun made a series of increasingly large
"utopias" for mice and rats. Mice were fed, kept warm, and placed in a
controlled area where there were no predators. After a bit, the mice begin to
thrive and expand. But after a while things start to go astray in ways that
are unexpected and a bit strange. And ultimately the population collapses and
completely dies out --- even in utopia.

[1]: [https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-doomed-mouse-
utopi...](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/the-doomed-mouse-utopia-that-
inspired-the-rats-of-nimh)

