The next epidemic is here
This time around, the disease isn’t a pathogen
If you’ve been following recent trends lately, there’s a chance you may have heard about a startling one called hikikomori. This new idea, which initially started in Japan, has spread like wildfire. The notion behind it lies in the rejection of societal pressures through not working, training, or engaging with the outside world. Since its conception, the idea behind the hikikomori movement has tremendously exploded in popularity; it rapidly spread to China in the infamous lie flat movement and even to the United States in the form of no education, employment, or training movement— NEET.
This startling trend did not emerge overnight. In fact, about a decade ago, something began to unsettle psychologists and psychiatrists…
Rates of diagnosis with anxiety and depression began skyrocketing among teens to levels never previously recorded in human history — and continued to do so since the discovery of such an association in 2012. Horrified by these startling trends, psychologists and psychiatrists arrived to the conclusion that the degree of psychological languish being experienced is sufficient to constitute a “public health crisis.” Over time, psychologists felt that the newfound trends in the rise of depression, anxiety, and loneliness became endemic to the degree that they…
