Medicine and Health Sciences Commons^™

Internet Addiction, Smartphone Addiction, And Hikikomori Trait In Japanese Young Adult: Social Isolation And Social Network, Masaru Tateno, Alan R. Teo, Wataru Ukai, Junichiro Kanazawa, Ryoko Katsuki, Hiroaki Kubo, Takahiro A. Kato

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: As the number of internet users increases, problems related to internet overuse are becoming more and more serious. Adolescents and youth may be particularly attracted to and preoccupied with various online activities. In this study, we investigated the relationship of internet addiction, smartphone addiction, and the risk of hikikomori, severe social withdrawal, in Japanese young adult.

Methods: The subjects were 478 college/university students in Japan. They were requested to complete the study questionnaire, which consisted of questions about demographics, internet use, the Internet Addiction Test (IAT), the Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS)–Short Version (SV), the 25-item Hikikomori Questionnaire …

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 …