[HN Gopher] Finding the biological roots for pathological social...
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Finding the biological roots for pathological social withdrawal,
Hikikomori
Author : geox
Score : 101 points
Date : 2022-07-30 11:35 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.kyushu-u.ac.jp)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.kyushu-u.ac.jp)
| ilaksh wrote:
| The only in-depth video I have seen of a so-called Hikikomori was
| actually a man with quite a significant social life as well as
| multiple businesses. He just did everything online.
|
| I'm American and I think I fall into a general "Hikikomori"
| category although this term seems to be ambiguous and poorly
| understood.
|
| The short version is that working online and not going out much
| at all may just make sense if you are relatively poor and have a
| health condition and/or just don't want to deal with office
| politics anymore.
|
| And especially if you don't have much savings, going out, making
| and keeping in-person friends can be quite a struggle. For me, my
| startups or the easily acquired contracts with "international"
| rates keep my savings relatively close to zero.
|
| And the reality is that society is quite judgemental towards men
| or individuals who do not have a high income or even seem unwell.
|
| But part of this is just an ignorance of technology. No, I don't
| go out usually except when I have to go to the ATM because my
| landlord is a bit behind the times, but I do work quite hard and
| socialize in my own way. My online business right now is again
| kind of keeping me poor but the other hand I am getting hundreds
| and often thousands of microtransactions per day at this point.
| And fairly optimistic about it.
|
| I did have a little working vacation scheduled to visit my
| brother and his family in a week or two but had to cancel it
| because I am just going to be scraping by this month and if there
| was another fight with his wife then I would have no recourse
| because could not afford to get a hotel. Anyway it's just not
| practical right now.
|
| Anyway, a retreat to living online can be easily explained by
| just having financial and/or health problems.
|
| But I also do have a social life to a degree. I play Eleven Table
| Tennis in VR almost every day. I get to have my day on any topic
| on HN, reddit or sometimes Discord.
|
| But I would say even in VR I am somewhat withdrawn in that I find
| places like VR Chat awkward and mainly avoid them. Part of that I
| think is just my nature of not having a ton of interest in
| socialization or a lot of energy left over for it. But another
| aspect is again the financial situation. Even I would say the
| cheap apartment may contribute because all of my business is
| broadcast to my neighbors which does suppress voice chat
| interaction somewhat.
| lawrenceyan wrote:
| You should try going in-person to a ping pong place! I bet your
| VR experience transitions decently to physical gameplay.
| ilaksh wrote:
| I did go to a ping pong club for some months a few years
| back. It's not very practical these days due to financial
| constraints.
|
| Anyway, to people in the thread downvoting me already within
| 20 seconds, way to go. Anyone who knows me in person would
| describe me as a Hikikomori. And I am giving a detailed
| explanation. But you just bury it within thirty seconds.
|
| Honestly I think this is part of the explanation of why I
| don't have a lot of friends. I tell the truth plainly, and
| people don't like it because it goes against their often
| incorrect worldview.
| lawrenceyan wrote:
| Nice! I'm sorry to hear about your financial circumstances.
| Hopefully they improve as your business gets up and
| running.
|
| Truth has incredible value. But I think there's a way to do
| so while still being considerate of the other person you're
| talking to.
| ilaksh wrote:
| I don't feel that I am I inconsiderate online. Just
| literally have contrary viewpoints that don't sit well
| with people.
|
| Actually sometimes my comments are more blunt these days.
| But that is an adaptation from receiving disdain for
| years when expressing contrarian viewpoints, mostly
| regardless of the tone I use.
| h0p3 wrote:
| If you do want another hiki-type friend, HMU.
| DAVer98 wrote:
| [deleted]
| jinto36 wrote:
| While the idea is interesting, I think that lifestyle changes
| associated with the social withdrawal behavior are likely to make
| any blood-based biomarkers reflective of being more sedentary
| rather than having any causal association. The article does not
| mention if their "healthy" control subjects also had similar
| lifestyle patterns but without the social withdrawal.
| woweoe wrote:
| Japan is one of those countries where rumors and social pressure
| can be worse than law enforcement. The UK is a similar country in
| many regards (especially in terms of social culture) but has
| managed to build a better social support network and awareness of
| the negatives of mental health and "bullying" is more apparent. I
| also think that "witch hunt" morality is more tolerated in Japan
| whereas in the UK it's considered harmful. Japan does have a lot
| of strict laws against such things, but it may also reflect the
| severity of the issue in that the problem still exists (for
| British people a good comparison might be classism and associated
| cultural traits in the UK). The issue can be associated with
| mental health issues (especially the aftereffects) but it needs
| to get to the core of the issue that is the bullying and
| exclusionary social pressure in Japan.
|
| These people have almost universally been bullied or subject to
| severe stress from social pressure. I currently live in Japan but
| I find it hard to speak out because the internet can be too
| Americanized to explain my culture comparison.
| toyg wrote:
| There are many societies you could suggest as a model to
| improve what Japanese culture lacks. The UK is not one of
| those.
|
| Urban UK is a crumbling non-society, plagued by social
| disgregation, ghettos, wanton violence, relentless vandalism,
| shocking rates of theft, and significant amounts of abuse on
| women and minors. Compared to urban Japan, it's a Middle-Age
| hellhole.
| [deleted]
| miniwark wrote:
| Japan would do better against "Hikikomori syndrome" by changing
| the studding environment culture of their school: bulling against
| the non-normative people (with closed eyes from the school),
| super competitive studies, almost mandatory second school, all to
| become boring salarymen bullied by the corporate higher ups. The
| society pressure for this life model is the problem, not some
| sort of genetics.
|
| Also, most Hikikomori are men, because women may be able to
| escape all this crap by getting married. This is also a failure,
| because they are not expected to get a "real work" and to quit
| asap if married.
|
| There is also the "herbirore" phenomenon, the cousins of the
| Hikikomoris, mainly people who want to avoid the family culture
| of Japan. (And let not forget about the suicides, but japan is
| not ranked first on this contrary to common beliefs)
|
| Fortunately all this seems to change little by little, but
| searching for "biological roots" is just searching for excuses.
| Next research will be an American university searching for
| "biological root" in young people doing killing spree in schools
| ?
| DiggyJohnson wrote:
| Answering the question of _why does coping with these pressures
| take this form_ does indeed have a biological component. It's
| not excuse making to ask why humans respond to certain negative
| pressures in a recognizable pattern.
| turdit wrote:
| i wonder if your interpretation of the myth of sisyphus that
| sisyphus just doesn't cope with negative pressure well
| enough. maybe we should look for a biological component to
| explain sisyphus's attitude.
| ravenstine wrote:
| _Yeah, but first we must ask why more people drown when a
| Nicolas Cage movie comes out._
|
| https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/nick-
| cage...
|
| Point being, all we have is correlation, and to go down the
| road of chemical imbalance can lead to wasting time, more
| people socially withdrawing, and possibly more people being
| harmed by some cockamamie medical treatment for something
| that may very well be socially instigated.
|
| And what better way to dismiss people's problems than to
| assume they're defective.
| NalNezumi wrote:
| The herbivore (I assume that's what you meant), Cao Shi Xi Nan
| Zi has little to do with "not wanting family" and more to do
| with men that are not keen to approach / take initiative
| towards women. Usually not just because of shyness but because
| relationships are very very low in their priority list.
|
| Jue Shi Xi (roughly translated to "fastivore", fasting) are
| probably the one you're referring to.
|
| The statistics that says 40-60% of 30s year old males have
| never been in a relationship is probably more from this
| attitude.
| nervousvarun wrote:
| "40-60% of 30s year old males have never been in a
| relationship"
|
| That is a staggering statistic.
|
| If that's even remotely accurate the implications for the
| future of the country are astounding.
| [deleted]
| swayvil wrote:
| When I was a wee lad it occurred to me that there was a choice
| before me : to imitate or not to imitate.
|
| Society is largely composed of people imitating each other.
| Imitation is membership. Imitation is moral. Imitate effectively
| and your future is bright.
|
| These hikkomoris are making a choice.
| taurath wrote:
| That we still think there are biological rather than
| sociopsychological roots shows we've got a long way for science
| to catch up. Misunderstanding of trauma and the effects on
| physiology of it abound. The amount of pressure put on children
| in society is extremely high.
| camdenlock wrote:
| The amount of firmware that ships on the human brain is
| staggering, and we have only just begun to uncover it. We
| ignore our evolutionary origins at our most extreme peril.
| jongjong wrote:
| I think that a large portion of society has gone insane and I see
| the need for social withdrawal as a mark of sanity. It reminds me
| of this Aldous Huxley quote:
|
| "The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found
| among those who appear to be most normal. Many of them are normal
| because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence,
| because their human voice has been silenced so early in their
| lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop
| symptoms as the neurotic does. They are normal not in what may be
| called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in
| relation to a profoundly abnormal society. Their perfect
| adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental
| sickness. These millions of abnormally normal people, living
| without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human
| beings, they ought not to be adjusted."
|
| I find that a lot of highly socialized/extroverted people seem
| mentally ill - They tend to resort to common catch phrases to
| express themselves. They don't seem to have their own opinions
| about anything. They never seem to be able to justify the thought
| processes which led to their decisions or beliefs - Their line of
| thought about anything tends to be short and tends to link back
| to mainstream media rhetoric or religious dogma imposed on them
| by authority figures. They seem incapable of even basic self-
| analysis or introspection; they are only able to judge themselves
| and figure out what they want through the opinions and feedback
| of others. Also, they seem to lack creativity.
|
| For me, this is pretty obvious because I know enough sane people
| that I can see the difference. Spending time with sane people
| feels great and is fulfilling. Spending time with normal 'highly
| socialized' people feels terrible. It's just very difficult to
| find sane people these days... Especially within certain social
| groups, many people are just incredibly fake and incapable of
| forming a genuine relationship.
| toyg wrote:
| I find these takes pretty silly, if you look at them in a
| historic perspective.
|
| Is it more human to live in a village where the local feudal
| lord has right of life and death on everyone? Where people are
| bought and sold as cattle with the land they are forced to live
| on?
|
| Is it more human to live in a kingdom that will go to war with
| another because someone stole someone else's woman, or because
| they are arguing about whom is the son of whom? You are minding
| your own business, until one day some authority drafts you and
| suddenly you're in a field with a heavy pole, shouting that
| you'll butcher or be butchered in the name of something that
| makes no difference to your life.
|
| Is it more human to live as a slave and drag massive rocks day
| in and day out, in order to build funeral monuments to some
| "living god"?
|
| An ever-increasing percentage of the world population lives in
| the best of times - something undeniably demonstrated by the
| enormous demographic rise. There are more humans that ever, how
| can you seriously argue we are "less human" than before...?
| yata69420 wrote:
| American here, but this seems like a problem only for working
| class Japanese? And this study seems to be looking for a
| "solution"?
|
| I can't imagine that anyone would care if you're rich and
| isolated.
| forinti wrote:
| Japanese society seems so demanding and judgemental, I would go
| looking for socio psychological motives before digging into
| biology.
| hirundo wrote:
| I'll guess that the biological roots are the same as for any
| learned avoidance of painful stimuli. When people make social
| contact and repeatedly and predictably find that it is negative,
| they learn to withdraw from it. They try withdrawal once, it
| relieves some of the pain, and it does so over and over. It's the
| same as a dog who avoids the kid who kicks it. I'd bet that the
| dog would make a good animal model to investigate the biology ...
| but I'm not sure it's worth learning at that price.
|
| You might be able to "cure" the dog of withdrawal by changing its
| chemistry such that it no longer avoids the abusive child. But if
| the child is still out there that isn't necessarily a favor to
| the dog.
| maltyr wrote:
| This is pretty much my take on it as well.
|
| Once you hit adulthood, most able-bodied, able-minded people
| are expected to be "contributing members of society". But that
| definition is pretty nebulous - it doesn't have to be society's
| definition - whatever you set to be your own expectations for
| success. If you repeatedly fail to meet those standards you set
| for yourself, it can cause you to turn this feeling of pain and
| frustration from failure inwards, towards yourself.
|
| At some point, you simply withdraw entirely, because you are
| afraid of feeling the pain of failure that you trained yourself
| to associate with attempting to meet your goals.
|
| This is often compounded by well-meaning people trying to shame
| you into doing something: "You can't live like this! You HAVE
| to get a job!" - sort of "support" from family members or
| friends.
|
| Or, they might throw blame: "Why don't you work harder? Stop
| wasting your time doing nothing!"
|
| I think this may be a significant factor on why this symptom
| appears much more common in Japan, a mono-cultural society with
| very high expectations to conform. Also perhaps why it's
| growing overall, as the general prospects for younger people
| seem to be worse than the previous generation across most
| developed countries.
|
| However, I don't think you can treat the chemistry to "fix"
| social withdrawal. I believe it's linked to other mental health
| issues, like depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem. Treating
| those issues, primarily through therapy, is required first,
| before working on fixing social withdrawal, which at that point
| should be straightforward.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| >I don't think you can treat the chemistry to "fix" social
| withdrawal
|
| Oh, I'll bet you a fat R&D contract and a promised economic
| boom that you can. And you probably "can", for a given value
| of ""fix"". It'll just be another neoliberal pressure-washer
| pointed at the weathered rock face of our collective
| humanity. See, it's still just fine!
| nradov wrote:
| You're not wrong, but some fraction of the hikikomori could
| also be treated effectively through tough love. Their
| behavior is being enabled by parents who allow them to live
| at home, set low expectations, and fail to enforce
| consequences. If parents kick them out then they'll be forced
| to sink or swim. This may seem harsh, but those parents will
| die eventually and the hikikomori will eventually have to
| fend for themselves no matter what. Better to learn how to
| live in society sooner than later.
| yata69420 wrote:
| > If parents kick them out then they'll be forced to sink
| or swim.
|
| If you've ever lived in or near a US city, the "sink"
| outcome is actually quite common.
|
| > Better to learn how to live in society sooner than later.
|
| Your approach converts a family struggle into a community
| problem.
|
| I don't see why society would encourage families that can
| support hikikomori for some number of years to offload all
| of them onto society immediately, even if some would
| successfully "swim".
| nradov wrote:
| The community will have to deal with those people
| eventually. Putting it off just makes things worse.
|
| Some of those shut-ins would do well enlisting in the
| military, if they can pass the medical screening.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| > Some of those shut-ins would do well enlisting in the
| military
|
| that's probably exactly the worst thing you could do to
| them.
| yata69420 wrote:
| Yes, eventually, and we will need programs for people in
| their 40s+ who have been cared for by their now deceased
| families. I suspect you're going to need hot pockets,
| video games, cots, showers, and they'll do ok. Maybe by
| then they'll be happy they're in a community together
| because they've been community deprived their entire
| lives. Who knows, this is a new problem.
|
| But if you force them to "sink or swim" now, you're going
| to have a raging generation of 20-somethings with nothing
| to lose and contempt for the society and families that
| abandoned them. Also, did you notice the planet is
| literally burning?
|
| For personal reasons, I'd like to keep society going a
| little longer. If we could not start a Joker breeding
| program, that'd be great.
| Nullabillity wrote:
| Sending people off to die is not the answer to anything.
| nradov wrote:
| How many people die in the Japanese Self-Defense Forces?
| Or are you proposing that they shut down their military
| entirely?
| livueta wrote:
| You're not wrong about parental enablers, but those without
| that kind of support basically just end up as freeters.
| Cost of living is surprisingly low for a first-world
| country if you've got low standards, so life can be
| sustained by not many hours of a robotic low-wage job. The
| reality of sonkeigo/kenjougo phrasebook shit means that
| there's not much risk of authentic human interaction even
| in a public-facing role, so I think you'd be surprised at
| how many people who are technically employed resemble the
| classic hikkiNEET pathologies. I'd call it more of a
| worldview than a specific state strictly defined by
| employment status.
| maltyr wrote:
| I rarely use absolutes, but I don't think "tough love" is
| the solution to anything, if your goal is to truly help the
| person you are applying "tough love" to.
|
| As long as there's a thread of trust between the caregiver
| and the shut-in, you have access/influence with them, and
| they can be rehabilitated, under the right circumstances.
|
| A safer option might be to completely change their
| environment, but stay supportive, in order to break any
| entrained behavior connected to being a shut-in. Might be
| difficult to achieve this in Japan, though.
|
| If you delete that remaining thread of trust by applying
| "tough love," they will be forced to face the trauma that
| they could not before, but without any support.
|
| Perhaps some small fraction might "survive" that ordeal,
| but it's not exactly setting them up for long-term success.
|
| I do think many parents have no idea how to handle a
| dependent in that situation. The worst case scenario is
| when parents have also "given up" on their child ever
| recovering/improving - those situations need intervention
| from an outside party.
|
| EDIT: I'd define "tough love" as actions done with the
| intent of "helping" someone, but with wanton disregard to
| that someone's health.
| nradov wrote:
| Tough love doesn't work for everyone, but it works on
| many people. Worth a try at least.
|
| This modern concern about "trauma" over minor little
| discomforts is just pathetic. Some people just need to
| harden up and quit whining.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| It may just be my own misperception, but the "tough love"
| approach comes too close to the "pull oneself up by their
| own bootstraps" for personal comfort. It _can_ work, but it
| _doesn 't_ often enough that I would strongly hesitate to
| propose it as a solution.
|
| Ultimately, I don't think that any set of short-term
| actions alone can truly solve this. Macro-scale societal
| changes need to be in place or at minimum in progress
| before micro-scale efforts with individuals to make sense.
| Cure the disease, not the symptom.
| HPsquared wrote:
| I think you hit the nail on the head mentioning monoculture.
| If there's only one way to be successful and accepted, anyone
| who doesn't fit the mold simply drops out. In a more varied
| society there are more alternative "acceptable" paths
| available to those people who didn't fit the mold for the
| primary path.
| tootie wrote:
| I'm purely speculating but I think it's also a side effect of
| the high degree of development in places like Japan and
| elsewhere in the first world. If you're the child a middle
| class family it's just so easy to live a subsistence lifestyle
| without working hard or engaging in your community. This kind
| of isolation would kill someone in a more primitive society but
| if you can lock yourself in an apartment with running water and
| food delivery you can be relatively comfortable forever.
| bergenty wrote:
| All that housing, food, water and internet cost money. I
| don't think it's as easy as you're making it seem.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Kind of like how in older societies there have been examples
| of reclusive people from aristocracy. You don't hear about
| that in the lower classes, of course, because it's so
| unsustainable for someone in that position.
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Hermits were aristocratic? I thought they hunted, fished,
| and generally saw to their own needs, supplemented with
| occasional (minimal) trading.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| I think grandparent is talking about wealthy aristocrats
| who decide they don't want to interact with
| society/anyone. Pre-pizza-delivery, one would have had to
| be incredibly wealthy to manage to pull this off -- or be
| a penniless hermit, yeah.
|
| The reason I replied, however, was the use of the phrase
| "hermits were aristocratic?", because it brought to mind
| the fad of the ornamental hermit, kept as a positional
| good on estates of the rich. [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_hermit
| Vespasian wrote:
| To be fair we don't hear about the lower classes in
| general.
|
| People who wrote the (history) books didn't bother and
| therefore historians and archeologist have not a lot to go
| by. Much of their everyday lives has to be pieced together
| from scarce evidence.
|
| Sociology is only arriving on the scene much later.
| Avicebron wrote:
| I believe in Japan's case there were significant economic
| issues (the removal of the "lifetime salaryman career path
| where the company spent significant amount of time in
| investing/promising it's employees a social contract based on
| financial security) towards the end of the 80s, resulting in
| severe penalties to the nations youth at the time that
| initiated a so called "lost generation" who frequently ended up
| as Hikkimori.
|
| e.g. when the rug/promise was pulled out and the only prospects
| were low paid temp work often with no or little social safety
| nets, whole swathes of people realized that the social contract
| they signed up for was gone and it drove a lot of people into
| seclusion.
| [deleted]
| whatshisface wrote:
| Add workweeks so long that you can't see your family if you
| have one and can't meet a partner if you don't...
| decafninja wrote:
| I was under the impression that the lifelong salaryman
| career was still both available and common - just that many
| youths see their parents trapped in it and find such a
| lifestyle extremely undesirable.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| My understanding is it may be available and common but
| also not as rewarding.
|
| The parents may be trapped in it but that's partially
| because they earn a lot of money doing it, so changing
| jobs is hard.
|
| Nowadays it's likely those jobs aren't even as lucrative
| as they used to be, on top of being an unappealing
| lifestyle.
|
| Which is basically true the world over it seems. No one
| is making as much as people used to
| jjoonathan wrote:
| Well, some people are making _a lot_ more. The enormous
| cash flows from economic expansion didn 't all vanish
| into thin air.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| Yes, I'm not blind to that.
|
| So where is the incentive for your average salaryman to
| go and work hard, to make those people way way richer?
| decafninja wrote:
| As is always the case, aren't they a stark minority
| though?
|
| The average middle aged Japanese family salaryman seems
| to be firm and stable middle class in return for a
| lifetime of slogging through long, bureaucratic, workdays
| where he seldom sees his family (and his family, him).
|
| I specifically use the term "him" because this seems to
| be overwhelmingly a male phenomenon. On the other side of
| the equation, the wife and kids rarely see the
| husband/father.
| the_only_law wrote:
| A few YouTube videos have popped up in my feed suggesting
| a similar trend in Chinese youth.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| The same thing happened in several European countries and, to
| an extent, in the States. People still talk about being hired
| for life and never having to struggle to find a job.
|
| Tech is mostly immune to that though
| swayvil wrote:
| Those roots could also be called reasonable.
|
| Do we cure reasonable?
| iaaan wrote:
| > But if the child is still out there that isn't necessarily a
| favor to the dog.
|
| I think this is the major problem of a lot of
| modern/contemporary mental healthcare. The "tough
| love"/rewiring/reframing + medication approach probably does
| often get the desired result from a 10,000ft view (the patient
| is "functional" within society and isn't actively trying to
| harm themselves or others), but it frequently gets administered
| in the most disgustingly dogmatic, abusive way, which leads to
| the person in question becoming either emotionally dead, or an
| anxious, neurotic mess. But hey, at least they show up on time
| for their cashier job!
|
| There are too many people receiving therapy licenses (only
| referring to the US here as I'm not familiar with the rest of
| the world) who have zero real understanding of what they're
| doing to/with their patients beyond reciting the scripts they
| learned in a three-day CBT or DBT seminar.
|
| And on one hand, it's hard to blame the practitioners, because
| what are they supposed to tell someone who hasn't been able to
| make rent for three months despite working full-time and is
| about to get evicted again? Or who is neurodivergent in some
| way that literally prevents them from engaging in menial labor
| without wanting to kill themselves? What can they concretely do
| to help these people other than teach them to convince
| themselves that everything is fine and they are the problem?
|
| The whole system is fucked up and there's not really a clear,
| simple, realistic solution.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| With an n=83 they did clustering, random forests and a regression
| model to develop a new genetic test? At least they used the
| standard questionnaire which should resist the chance of them
| overfitting the data.
|
| But, the problem could be generally solved by treating people
| with the disease just using the questionnaire. Taking people's
| blood to see if treatment is progressing is an interesting way to
| assess people for treatment. Would be great if this test was
| expanded to a larger amount of people.
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(page generated 2022-07-30 23:01 UTC)