"Hikikomori", the teenage problem that worries Japan but spreads around the world

March 4, 2019

No less than 541,000 people live in Japan, locked up in their rooms, without going out almost literally from their homes. The word for defining them is "hikikomori", and refers to single people who refuse social contact and in many cases they have been out of touch with the outside world for years, trapped in a kind of "eternal adolescence".

Statistical data jumped in a government survey and indicate that 1.57% of this country has taken the habit of not leaving its country of origin. However, experts estimate that this figure, although it represents more than half a million inhabitants, is still much higher. For the specialists, only the cases of people who have noticed that their isolation is pathological and who have asked for help, but who still have thousands of cases that have not been revealed, have been taken into account. account.

Technology is one of the factors mentioned, although there is no evidence that it is an exclusive cause. However, it is likely that the hyperconnectivity that prevails today is one of the main reasons for this phenomenon, which is not unique to Japan: in South Korea, there was already 33,000 socially isolated adolescents and in Hong Kong. a 2014 survey estimated this figure at 1.9% of the total number of inhabitants.

The United States, Italy, France and Spain are also witnesses of this problem, but Takahiro Kato, professor of psychiatry at Kyushu University and researcher of hikikomori, ensures that the Japan is a country inclined to acquire this type of tendencies: "The rigid social norms, the high expectations of parents and the culture of shame make Japanese society helpless to cultivate feelings of incompetence and desire that you want to hide.", quotes the BBC.