hikikomori

n. a state of social withdrawal or willful anomie. Subjects: Japanese, Japan

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Citations: 2000 Ryu Murakami Time International (Asia) (May 1) “Japan’s Lost Generation” vol. 155, no. 17, p. 49: Hikikomori has become a major issue in Japan. Loosely translated as “social withdrawal,” hikikomori refers to the state of anomie into which an increasing number of young Japanese seem to fall these days. Socially withdrawn kids typically lock themselves in their bedrooms and refuse to have any contact with the outside world. They live in reverse: they sleep all day, wake up in the evening and stay up all night watching television or playing video games. Some own computers or mobile phones, but most have few or no friends. Their funk can last for months, even years in extreme cases. 2000 Mark Goldsmith Daily Yomiuri (Tokyo) (May 13) “Locked inside: Cases of hikikomori, or social withdrawal, on the rise” p. 7: Hikikomori is not a disease. For reasons ranging from bullying to exam failure, some young people are shutting themselves away in their rooms and having as little direct contact with the outside world as possible. Many are suicidal, but lack the will to make good their morbid fantasies. It is not clear at what point someone crosses the line into hikikomori. But after a month of seclusion it would not be too soon to seek treatment, psychiatrists say. Machizawa knows one person who shunned professional help for 20 years. 2004 Paul Wiseman USA Today (June 2) “No sex please—we’re Japanese”: In fact, as many as a million young men—mostly teenagers, but increasingly older men as well—suffer from what is known here as hikikomori. It’s a condition in which they seclude themselves in their rooms for weeks at a time (though the causes seem to go well beyond fear of women to traumatic experiences from the past, such as being bullied at school).

Posted 8 Jul 04 | Permalink | Tell a Friend