JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Hikikomori is a severe form of social withdrawal, originally described in Japan but recently reported in other countries. Debate exists as to what extent hikikomori is viewed as a problem outside of the Japanese context.

Objective:

We aimed to explore perceptions about hikikomori outside Japan by analyzing Western language content from the popular social media platform Twitter.

Methods:

We conducted a mixed quantitative-qualitative analysis of all publicly available tweets using the hashtag #hikikomori between February 1 and August 16, 2018 in five Western languages (Catalan, English, French, Italian, and Spanish). Tweets were first classified as to whether they described hikikomori as a problem. Tweets were then subclassified in terms of what type of problem (medical, social, or anecdotal), and we marked if they referenced scientific publications or the presence of hikikomori in countries other than Japan. We also examined measures of interest in content related to hikikomori including retweets, likes, and associated hashtags.

Results:

1,042 tweets used #hikikomori, and 656 (62.3%) were included in the content analysis. Most of the included tweets were written in English (44.20%) and Italian (34.16%), and a majority (56.70%) discussed hikikomori as a problem. Tweets referencing scientific publications (3.96%) and hikikomori as present in countries other than Japan (13.57%) were less common. Tweets mentioning hikikomori outside Japan were statistically more likely to be retweeted (p=0.019) and liked (p=0.019) than those not mentioning Japan, whereas tweets with explicit scientific references were statistically more retweeted (p=0.014) but not liked (p=0.095) than those without that reference. Retweet and like figures were not statistically significative different between among other categories and sub-categories. The most associated hashtags included references to Japan, mental health and the youth.

Conclusions:

Hikikomori is a repeated word in non-Japanese Western languages in Twitter, and although most tweets treat this phenomenon as a problem, the ways to post about it are highly heterogeneous. Twitter contents have revealed the emergence of hikikomori in countries outside Japan, a phenomenon that deserves further cross-cultural research.