Thread: Is this you???

Confinement isn't just for Chilean miners
Half a million Japanese people, and countless others, have chosen "hikikomori", says Daniel Knowles.

By Daniel Knowles
Published: 2:02PM BST 14 Oct 2010



While everyone is focused on the 33 men unfortunate enough to get stuck in a hole for two months, millions of people are actually choosing to isolate themselves, often preferring the comforting glow of a computer screen to the harsh reality of outside.
In Japan, the phenomenon is called “hikikomori”. The weak Japanese economy and the intense academic pressure children are put under are probably as much to blame as computer games. As many as half a million young Japanese men lived locked up in their rooms, refusing all social contact outside of the bubble they create for themselves. Rather like the Chilean miners, they often live on food passed through to them by despairing relatives. Unlike the miners, they are not waiting to get out.

It’s not unique to Japan. In China, internet addiction “boot camps” have become a commonplace. In South Korea, as many as 10 people are known to have died from blood clots as a result of sitting still for too long, unwilling to leave their digital worlds. Almost everywhere, freedom from material want is making it easier than ever for a person to completely cut themselves off from society, while the internet and elaborate “social” computer games offer an alternative, less threatening reality. The breakdown of traditional family networks means that when people disappear, they can go unmissed, sometimes for years. In Britain, one in three households is now occupied by a single person, while in big cities it is no longer normal to know who your neighbours are.
To give a personal perspective on long confinement, the BBC yesterday brought out John McCarthy to talk about his experience as a hostage in Lebanon. Though his insights were fascinating, they would almost have done better going into a bedroom and dragging out one of the many thousands of people living under self imposed isolation. It might make for less of a story, but people who choose to lock themselves away from the world are suffering almost as much as any trapped miner.
Confinement isn't just for Chilean miners - Telegraph

Of course there are always other possible reasons. Extremely unpalatable to society, so will never be discussed. Much like the reasons behind many suicides.

Maybe society has become so fuckin superficial, selfish and greedy that many simply don't want to carry on trying to function within in if at all possible.

''but people who choose to lock themselves away from the world are suffering almost as much as any trapped miner''.
no they are not , the trapped miners had wives and family , the guys lost on the internet are just passing time till something better turns up, and if it does not they don't seem too bothered .

''the BBC yesterday brought out John McCarthy to talk about his experience as a hostage in Lebanon''
how many times they gonna wheel that twat out ?