According to a report released by the Japanese government, more than half a million young Japanese people (or 700,000 according to some estimates) are voluntary recluses. This phenomenon is called "hikikomori".
That's why it happens …
The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare defines hikikomori as individuals who do not leave their home and isolate themselves from family and society for more than 6 months. Of the 541,000 people aged 15 to 39 who fit this description, 34% have spent seven or more years in complete self-isolation. Another 29% lead a hermitic life from 3 to 5 years.
The term hikikomori first appeared at the end of the 20th century. In the 1990s, about a million people, mostly young men in their 20s and 30s, spent their days in their room reading manga, watching television, or playing computer games. They refused to work or study, and often did not even communicate with family members, let alone friends.
There is no standard approach to such people yet. Scientists believe that this condition, which has not yet received the official status of the disease, is caused by a mixture of psychological and social causes. The problem is much more common in men than in women, as they are under much greater pressure from society, whose standards require social and professional success.
Social anthropologist James Robertson, editor of Men and Masculinity in Modern Japan, describes the phenomenon as follows:
“Men begin to feel the pressure of society in high school, and within two to three years, their success in later adult life is almost predetermined. Hikikomori is a way to resist pressure. They seem to say: “Go to hell! I don't like it and I won't do it."
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Failure in school and in the workplace can lead to social isolation, but it can be avoided by voluntarily withdrawing from the world. For some people, failure causes feelings of inadequacy, leading to anxiety disorders.
In 2010, according to government estimates, there were already 700,000 hikikomori in Japan, that is, their official number has decreased by almost a third. However, experts argue that the official data is incomplete, since only people from 15 to 39 years old were included in the statistics. Tens of thousands of hikikomori men are beyond this age. Last winter, The Japan Times wrote about the increased number of men over 40, "falling into the growing holes of the fabric of social existence," and leading a life of hikikomori. Most often this happened to them after being fired from work.
Hikikomori almost always come from wealthy families, and their parents are often highly educated. Researchers have found that educated parents not only place high expectations on their children, but are also more likely to provide financial support to adult non-working sons. According to statistics, about 60% of hikikomori live with both parents, and the rest with their mothers.
Medical history"
When young Japanese psychiatrist Tamaki Saito started his practice in the early 1990s, he was amazed by the many complaints from parents about the strange behavior of their children. He was approached by representatives of wealthy families who faced the same problem: their sons locked themselves in their rooms, did not want to do anything and communicate with anyone. Initially, the parents took it for ordinary teenage laziness, but the isolation lasted for months, if not years. Most often it was about boys.
Tamaki Saito claims that the first cases of such isolation of young people were recorded already in the late 1970s. Thus, the phenomenon originated even before the widespread spread of the World Wide Web. Tamaki Saito coined the term hikikomori to describe the behavior of young people, which in Japanese means "being in solitude." The scientist proposed to call that those who spend more than six months in voluntary isolation from society.
Unwillingness to communicate with others is difficult to unequivocally call a disease, but prolonged “infantile and antisocial behavior” can lead to serious consequences, says Dmitry Kovpak, associate professor of the Department of Psychology and Pedagogy at Northwestern State Medical University (NWSMU). According to the psychotherapist, most often such consequences are addictive, that is, dependent behavior, depression and "its most formidable companion - suicidal behavior."
With the spread of the Internet, the life of the Japanese, who had doomed themselves to isolation, changed a lot, and they began to strive to communicate with each other. According to Gleb, who introduces himself as a "former hikikomori" and in an interview with the media asks not to be given his full name, "hikki with Internet access is no longer a classic hikikomori suffering from a mental disorder, but rather a behavioral pattern." The platform for communication among the Japanese living in isolation has become image boards that allow them to maintain anonymity.
The main topic for discussion on the Internet was Japanese popular culture and computer games. It turned out that young people sitting at home are able to spend days on end watching their favorite anime or reading manga comics. Psychiatrist Andy Furlong even singled out such hikikomori into a separate type - "hikki otaku".
As of the early 1990s, the typical hikikomori was 21 years old. Twenty years later, their average age has increased dramatically and is now 32.
The path to seclusion
After breaking up with his girlfriend, Gleb felt a complete loss of motivation, interest in work and life. Not wishing to initiate friends into what had happened, the young man closed himself off and stopped contact with the outside world. “An empty apartment, which should have caused rejection, on the contrary, became the only place where I could feel good. In this state, you seem to be almost completely destroyed and you are saved from final destruction in the only shelter available to you, perceiving the world around you as a threat and unnecessary worry. Of course, you surf the Internet - more and more,”- Gleb shares his eight-month experience of being in a state of hikikomori.
The impetus for starting a life in isolation from society is often personal drama and troubles. For hundreds of young people like Gleb, it could be a breakup with a girl or a job loss. Teens often withdraw into themselves because of trouble at school or difficult relationships with classmates and parents.
For example, former hikikomori Matsu told BBC News that he decided to withdraw into himself because his parents forced him to choose a profession. The father demanded that the young man follow in his footsteps and become a professional artist with his own business, and his son dreamed of becoming a programmer in a large company. Unwilling to follow the path suggested by his parents, and unable to carry out his own plans, Matsu chose not to make any choice.
Experts are also trying to identify any common reasons for the emergence and spread of such a phenomenon as hikikomori.
Alexander Pavlov, Associate Professor of the Department of Practical Philosophy at the Higher School of Economics (HSE), believes that the main reason for the emergence of hikikomori as a social phenomenon is selfishness. According to the scientist, loners prefer what television and other media impose on them, "life for themselves" - "a priori downshifting." Young people are not trying to achieve certain heights. “Instead of going to work, starting a family, taking out a mortgage and forever losing free time, young people literally choose“nothing”- to sit in their room with no money and do what they are used to,” the philosopher says.
Associate Professor Kovpak does not really believe in the ability of hikikomori to make their own choice. He argues that although hikikomori subsume the philosophy of escapism (that is, the desire to escape from reality into a fantasy world) under their behavior, more often than not "these are just reflections and rehash of other people's clever words that help for the time being to turn off their parents."
Finally, the appearance of hikikomori is often explained by the peculiarities of Japanese society, in which the norms of traditional morality are still preserved. Teenagers are distinguished by secrecy and unwillingness to “wash dirty linen in public”. A separate aspect of the problem is the influence of the so-called amae. This word refers to the emotional dependence of the Japanese on loved ones, especially on mothers. It is believed that sons spoiled in childhood and in adulthood continue to shift responsibility for their own lives to others.
An illustrative example of that teenager locked in the kitchen, which was mentioned at the beginning of the article. His mother, unable to convince the boy to end the seclusion, gave up trying to change anything. The parents added another kitchen to the house and continued living as if nothing had happened. Three times a day, the mother shoved food under the boy's door. When the story became known to the press a few years later, the mother insisted that her son's name not be revealed. The woman was afraid of the reaction of her neighbors.
Hikikomori ghost
Most experts agree that real hikikomori can only live in Japan. Nevertheless, according to Associate Professor Pavlov from the Higher School of Economics, “in the rest of the world there are those who could well be called that”. For example, in the United States there were "bums" and before hikikomori - "generation X" born in the mid-1960s - early 1980s. But unlike hikikomori, representatives of "generation X" were, according to the scientist, rather not egoists, but ideologists of "non-participation in socio-economic relations." In Pavlov's interpretation, the ideologeme of this generation sounded as follows: “say no to the rat race; understand that life is not limited to work and money; abandon the policy; to understand that work is not for the sake of a career, but in order not to die of hunger."
As we said, the problem is not unique to Japan. The review, published by the journal Research and Advances in Psychiatry, describes cases of social hermitism recorded in many countries, for example, in the United States, China, Spain, Australia, Bangladesh, Iran. In South Korea, people tend to be highly addicted to the Internet, which is a serious public health problem.
According to the authors of the review, the conditions for the emergence of hikikomori exist in any developed country, especially during times of high youth unemployment. After all, modern technology allows us to feel surrounded by society, even if in reality we are hopelessly alone.
There are hikikomori in the broad sense of the word in Russia. However, they are traditionally compared not with Japanese heroes, but with a fairly well-known literary character. “Lying down for Ilya Ilyich was neither a necessity, like a sick person or a person who wants to sleep, nor an accident, like someone who is tired, nor pleasure, like a lazy one: this was his normal state. When he was at home - and he was almost always at home - he was lying, and everything was constantly in the same room, where we found him, which served as his bedroom, study and reception room "- this is how Ivan Goncharov described his main character in the 19th century. the novel "Oblomov".
Modern Russian Oblomovs also surf the Internet, like their Japanese adherents, and are often anime fanatics. Perhaps, only the economic conditions in Russia are less suitable for leading a carefree life: parents are often unable to provide all the necessary for a child who has stayed at home, and you cannot survive on unemployment benefits.
According to Pavlov, from time to time Russian "hikikomori" appear on non-specialized Internet forums. Young people sitting behind computer screens are polling who and where works, because they feel guilty before their families for messing around. “Having received the answer that many from these forums are also sitting at home, they calm down and continue to represent an“original phenomenon,”Pavlov notes.
Concerned parents have already started bringing their children to see psychiatrists. “I already had such very difficult and difficult to manage clients,” Kovpak shares his experience. It is possible to help such people, but "the desire of the parents to finally push their overgrown chick out of the nest is completely insufficient." Treatment is possible only on one condition - those hiding from society themselves must want healing. Kovpak, however, stipulates that this logic is applicable only when we are dealing with real hikikomori, and not with a patient with social phobia, autism or depression.