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Exploring The Extent Of The Hikikomori Phenomenon On Twitter: Mixed Methods Study Of Western Language Tweets, Pereira-Sanchez, Miguel Angel Alvarez-Mon, Angel Asunsolo Del Barco, Melchor Alvarez-Mon, Alan R. Teo

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

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 methods analysis of all publicly available tweets using the hashtag #hikikomori between February 1 and August 16, 2018, in 5 Western languages (Catalan, English, French, Italian, and Spanish). Tweets were first classified as to whether they described …