News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Japan home to 541,000 young recluses by Analemma_ on Wednesday September 07, 2016 @08:55PM (#12449382)
There's a theory out there, "to see what the West will look like in 10-20 years, look at Japan today". It's most commonly applied to economics (permanent low growth, low inflation and ZIRP) and demographics (falling birth rate), but I think it's true of the NEET and hikikomori phenomena as well.

The "unemployed young male who just plays video games" demographic that recently got a writeup in the WSJ certainly seems to parallel Japan's NEETs. With hikikomori, it's more anecdotal, but when I flick through my Tumblr feed I feel like I see a lot of people who state outright that they just can't function outside. I think in a few more years it will be noticeable enough that we can say it's happening here "for real"

Re:Japan home to 541,000 young recluses by sotojuan on Wednesday September 07, 2016 @10:02PM (#12449668)
> when I flick through my Tumblr feed I feel like I see a lot of people who state outright that they just can't function outside.

I'm going to sound rude and this is out of anecdotal experience (and I know some people actually can't function outside) but you should be careful when people on Tumblr say that. I've found most are just bored or lonely teenagers who self-diagnose themselves random things like Aspergers, ADHD, depression, etc. for whatever reason (sometimes for a valid reason related to family/household dysfunction, other times just to appear more interesting and to fit in online). When I used Tumblr five or so years ago I remember following these people and the ones I kept in touch with well, to sound rude again, grew out of it.

Re:Japan home to 541,000 young recluses by TazeTSchnitzel on Wednesday September 07, 2016 @09:47PM (#12449604)
Consider, though, that people who can't function outside would be more likely to use the web (because they have little else to do). So it's not necessarily representative.