Following from the Indo monkey who posts during sleep Nipponese research reveal a new cohort of young shavers hiding .

(CNN)When Hideto Iwai was 16 he shut himself away in his room and refused to come out for four years.

Now a successful playwright, Iwai -- who talks candidly about his reclusive past -- had tried to strike out on his own at 15, but when he met with failure, his belief in both himself and the world crumbled.
So he sought refuge in his home.
"I just stayed in my room playing video games, watching films and sports programs," Iwai told CNN.

According to a Japanese cabinet survey released Wednesday, there are currently 541,000 young Japanese aged between 15 and 39 who lead similarly reclusive lives.
These people are known as hikikomori -- a term the Japanese Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry uses to define those who haven't left their homes or interacted with others for at least six months.

The term was coined as early as the 1980s, but there is still much debate on how exactly this condition is triggered and how it can be defined.

"We do think that there is a psychological aspect to this condition -- that it stems from depression and anxiety - but there are also cultural and societal influences at play," Takahiro Kato, a neuropsychiatrist professor at Kyushu University, told CNN.

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When people who have had little social interactions are thrust into high-pressured working environments, the change, said Kato, can be too abrupt for some.

"These people have lower levels of resilience and can often start feeling very pressurized," said Kato, who noted that the numbers of male hikikomori were higher than women owing to the higher expectations that Japanese society placed on men.

"When people don't succeed, they feel demoralized and that triggers the desire to shut themselves away," added Butters.