ShortHand: Hikikomori - Japan’s Modern Day Hermits

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Two clinical psychologists named Alan Teo and Abel Gaw published a proposal for a new disorder to the DSM-5. They talked about a 14-year-old Japanese boy who was suddenly and completely withdrawn from society. But just a year previously, he had been a totally average kid. He came from a stable home. He had nice parents, siblings that he got on with. And yet, now, he's simply gone. doesn't lead to more productivity it's actually the lowest productivity of g7 that is wild and also japan has lost its spot as the second largest economy in the world to china so it's clear that things in japan need to change because they're not even benefiting from their workforce working themselves to death especially as their population declines because japan is one of the countries that has one of the oldest populations and they're really their population is declining because also they have a lack of immigration there people aren't having children and people are fucking working themselves to death and they have super low productivity it's kind of like a recipe for disaster so that is why the japanese government when they're doing things like premium fridays turning the lights off it's not because they are like oh we should just be really nice they're like it's actually we need to change something fundamental i'm almost sure they have a national shagging day as well where everyone's giving the day off work and they're like please go and fuck your wife please have a baby for the good of the empire please have a child so yeah um i don't know and the government on top of turning all the lights off premium fridays etc is also trying to help by adding in more national holidays in 2016 they added a new one in um hannah would you like to guess what the new one that was added in 2016 was called it's something day penis day mountain day okay i think shagging day would be better maybe another one premium shagging day now again this was a desperate attempt not just to get people to stop fucking literally dying at their desks but it was also an attempt to boost consumer spending because everyone's at work all the time they're not spending enough money so yeah it's it's a problem that the government is trying to tackle the issue is that people aren't really taking it up because it's so ingrained in the culture so with all of that being said let's get back to our 40 year old boy it's commonly said of the hikikomori that there is no trigger that suddenly completely out of the blue these people recede into their rooms and refuse to leave this is however quite rarely the case in reality the cause of people entering a state of social isolation comes from some kind of trauma and this trauma ranges from losing loved ones to losing jobs or even just missing out on the grades you wanted at school and this includes the 14 year old boy in t.o. and gore's proposal as they say in their paper from the surface the boys jump into social isolation seemed sudden but on closer inspection it was far from it as it literally always is nobody does anything this extreme for no reason no and that idea that it does happen without a trigger does feel a little bit like people wanting to ignore what is forcing that yeah it's ignoring that it's a cultural problem so let's talk about this 14 year old boy as an infant the boy had been delayed in his speech and when he could talk he struggled with more complex sentence structures he wasn't mentally underdeveloped and it doesn't seem that he even really had any learning difficulties he was just a bit slower to progress than his peers this became more and more pronounced as he entered education then during his second year of middle school he decided he no longer wanted to attend for him the embarrassment of failure had become too much and he'd rather stop engaging altogether this idea of shame and embarrassment is something that runs through all of the stories that we have read about hikikomori known as haji in japanese intense shame around failure and the idea that failure reflects not just on you but also on your sekente or your reputation in society is a key factor in creating hikikomori and i think i'm obviously not japanese but being of the asian persuasion i can definitely vouch for the fact that asian culture are very based in shame and social embarrassment and people will literally kill themselves over something that just feels like a minor social slight in my experience and it is hardly a secret that there is intense pressure to succeed put on both children and adults in japanese culture it has been described as sink or swim in order to keep up with the pack you have to give everything you have and more if you don't you get left behind and sometimes even if you do because they have an extremely stratified education system so only two percent ever get the top grade it doesn't matter how many people in the population yeah get that grade so there is also this sense of disenfranchisement and what's the point ism in high schools and university exams because they're like i could literally kill myself over this and it would make no difference we did see an interview with a young woman um again a recovering hikakomori who had become isolated as an adult she said that the culture in japan had left her feeling as though she didn't have anyone who felt like a friend or a family member both her and her parents spent all of their time apart when she was growing up she was at school for almost every waking hour and her parents were at work she was schooled on the weekends and the only time that her and her parents were at home together was when they were asleep and as a result when it completely lost ultimately she decided not to do either of those things and stay home indefinitely and i know this isn't maybe the conscious thought that people who are hikakomori are making but again you know we only watched interviews and read these things and yes i had that conversation with that japanese couple for all of 20 minutes but it almost feels like the whole system is against me it's almost like a strike i'm just not going to engage with this that's absolutely what it is i'm just gonna take myself completely out of the equation and it's also why so much japanese street fashion is dressing like children because if you stay a child forever this can't happen to you yeah yeah and and it does feel a bit like if you i don't know if there is a culture where there isn't that time to just be a child and to to spend time with your family and to just the family are under so much pressure to work all the time so they can't spend time with the kids the kids are under so much pressure to perform at school that they can't just be children and spend time with their parents and whatever and again i can only speak from like my culture when i came here and i like worked in education conferences at first and you see how much like importance of play is placed in the west like because it is important it is really important play to learn is a very important learning process for children when i went to school in india and i did my first preschooling in india there is none of that there is no time to play you have to focus you have to you have to beat everybody else they grade you they rank you as soon as you're going into like first first like first standard as they call it so maybe a loss of all of that leads to you wanting to regress later to hold on to it it's it's really interesting and really sad coming back to this um of course not everyone can stay at home indefinitely and at this point it is worth noting that hikikomori are found almost entirely in middle and upper class families in japan there are almost no cases of hikikomori who are living in poor families or via their own means so this leads us to our next key factor in what creates hikikomori ame the japanese term for the expectation of indulgence in japanese parenting now this is a contentious topic and again one i think is going to be probably unfamiliar for for the people living in the west to for us to really wrap our heads around but essentially what it is is a lot of hikikomori feel incredibly let down by their parents and often blame them for the enormous pressure they were under before they withdrew however on the flip side of the coin there is a cultural expectation that parents will do anything to help their children they work long hours sacrifice all of their spare time and often give up every aspect of their pre-parental lives to put towards their children this means that japanese parents will if begrudgingly support their children financially and physically if they refuse to be a part of society so it's not sort of acceptable to just be like right i'm gonna try and do what i think is best for you and kick you out and hope that that gives you the jolt you need to sort your life out in other words the culture of unconditional support rightly or wrongly does seem to add to this creation of hikikomori and i think again that is quite typical in asian cultures where the parents will do anything to help the children but the expectation is when i'm old you look after me so as you can already see there is a culture that lends itself to creating hikikomori and it doesn't end there there's also an enormous stigma around mental health and to be honest any kind of health like any kind of like degenerative or genetically passed on or anything like that is quite shameful parents are often a lot more comfortable supporting their reclusive children than they are seeking outside help according to professor graham yourston around 80 of hikikomori have had some kind of underlying mental health issue i would feel like it's a hundred percent yes yes ranging from depression to anxiety to pcsd borderline personality disorder and even schizophrenia all of which are not the kind of thing a japanese parent would admit that their child might have or heaven forbid speak of outside their family and this makes a vicious cycle being a hikikomori or having a child that is one is deeply shameful but so is admitting that there is a problem and this makes parents far less likely to seek help and making it far more preferable for parents to keep their kids indoors out of sight forever as you can imagine this concept of hikikomori that popular in Japan. And so a lot of other explanations for the phenomenon have also been suggested. One of the more popular explanations in Japan is the conflict between its deep-rooted cultural values and the modern values promoted in the media. Japan's cultural values are based on Confucian teachings. They promote conformity for the sake of social harmony. A common phrase to explain this is, quote, the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. This directly clashes with Western values promoted on TV, films, and social media, where being original and unique is the key to having self-worth. According to some, these entirely conflicting pressures being applied to the Japanese youth creates a kind of stalemate, where young men and young women feel that their only option is to step back entirely and not choose either path. While this explanation might seem a bit far-fetched, it isn't entirely unreasonable. Pressure and expectation have come up time and again in our research. For instance, the 14-year-old boy that we spoke about earlier. According to his parents and their family therapist, he spent a lot of his time at home contemplating his future. He didn't spend his two years in isolation wallowing in self-pity, but rather trying to find his identity. He was also more than aware of the unsustainability of his current situation. He didn't think that he could stay at home forever, but somehow just knowing made the whole problem worse. Yeah, I mean, it would. You're just like, I am already behind, and now I'm stuck. My peers are all advancing. I'm well not in that top 2%. And the longer I stay at home, the worse this is going to get. But I also don't know how to get out of this. I don't think this is a uniquely. Japanese thing. But I do think, like you said, there's a lot more of them there than anywhere else. But this just, it does feel like 80% of mental health problems. Yeah, no. This feels like severe anxiety at the thought of the world passing you by. And in Japan, it's so much more compounded because here, at least, it feels like there are multiple routes to which you could have success. And if academics doesn't work for you, there are so many other options. But there, it feels like a society in which. If academics doesn't work for you, you're fucked. Yeah. In the end, the solution appeared to be fairly simple. Rather than his parents taking him to school, they took school to him, employing a home teacher to give him lessons. Interestingly, this teacher refused to engage with the boy unless he engaged first, giving him the opportunity to participate rather than forcing it onto him. And over time, the boy began to engage with his learning again, and then with his future. After two years, he enrolled in a vocational school where he could follow a creative subject that he was passionate about. And for him, his time as a hikikomori was over. However, not all hikikomori have the same opportunities. While the paper we cited used a 14-year-old for its case study, the reality is that the majority of hikikomori are over 20 years old, and around 50% are actually over 40 years old, still living at home with their parents. Again, that pressure must just continue to build because you're also looking at your parents in your 40s, like you're getting older and older, and pretty soon you're not going to be here. What will become of me? This has led to a lot of people seeing being a hikikomori as a long-term condition rather than as some sort of cultural phenomenon. And interestingly, the data on this is mixed. As we've already said, the majority of hikikomori do have an underlying mental health problem. According to Toe and Gore, around 26% suffered from anxiety. 23% had a diagnosed personality disorder, and 28% had been diagnosed with a form of neurodivergence as a child. And I'd have to say that, like, the dark figure there is going to be absolutely massive because getting diagnosed with something like that in Japan as a child is very rare. Yeah. Now, this might seem like concrete evidence that hikikomori is not its own condition. Surely, it's just Japan's response to a pre-existing phenomenon. Well, actually, Toe and Gore argue against this. A culture-bound syndrome, saying that while none of the mental health factors that we've just talked about are unique to Japan, the cultural pressure to achieve success is. They say that hikikomori is more than just Japanese culture dealing with mental health and neurodivergence, but also mental health and neurodivergence dealing with Japanese culture. For instance, someone with generalized anxiety in the UK is a lot less likely to be put under the same intense pressure that they would be in Japan, and therefore their reaction would be a lot less extreme. On top of this, a parent in the UK is much more likely to seek help if their son or daughter did have such an extreme reaction to pressure. So Toe and Gore argue that this makes hikikomori its own unique culture-bound syndrome. With all of that in mind, what's the solution to Japan's hikikomori problem? Well, as usual, it's far from simple. Naturally, a lot of current hikikomori see Japanese culture as the problem that needs to be solved. They argue that as a nation, they need to move away from the intense pressure put on children and adults to succeed. Saying that a culture of cram schools and salarymen is unsustainable. And to be honest, like we said, especially if you look at the productivity that Japan has, the data backs this up. According to one paper we found, the average full-time employee in Japan works well over a 50-hour week, with many companies enforcing an unwritten rule that employees are unable to go home until their supervisor has left the building. This leads to many people who are not able to go home until their supervisor has left the building. Staying at their desks well into the early hours of the morning, doing busy work in order to keep their job. The same goes for children in education, with many children spending up to 18 hours a day in some form of learning. Attending school from 8.45 in the morning to 3.15, and then attending after-school cram sessions until late in the evening. I think it's clear to say that that is probably overdoing it. And again, it's not just the lack of work-life balance. Again, it is that lack of time for a family to just spend together, which is obviously proving to be so detrimental. From a more short-term perspective, we've seen several papers, including the one written by Toe and Gore, which pointed to the use of traditional mental health techniques, like talking therapy. The idea being that if you can help someone to overcome what's making them feel the need to be so isolated, they can reintegrate themselves into society a lot easier. We've also seen schemes aimed at tackling the intense loneliness that leads some into becoming withdrawn. There's even a Hikikomori newspaper run by Recovering Hikikomori, aimed at creating a sense of community and friendship. And the growing voice of Hikikomori in Japan does seem to be helping as well, with a lot of recovered members of the withdrawn community saying that if Japan can change the stigma around becoming part of the hidden population, then people will feel more able to admit to having an issue. Truthfully, the problem seems far from solved. And if anything, seems to be growing. Every bit of data we saw showed the Hikikomori population in Japan was only getting bigger, and that there were more and more cases of being reported around the world. So it seems, at least anecdotally, that with social media creating higher expectations around what it means to succeed, the culture that creates Hikikomori in Japan is spreading. So sad. It's sad. It's very sad. So yeah, that's it, guys. That is a shorthand on Hikikomori. Fascinating topic. And yeah, sad all round. But there you go. Hopefully you learned something. And you can continue to shock and amaze Japanese tourists at cooking classes the world over with all of your information on Premium Fridays. So go forth and shock. And we'll see you next time. Go outside today. And go outside today. Bye. Bye. Bye.