The World in a Room: A Mixed Methods Research on the Hikikomori Phenomenon

The Hikikomori phenomenon was first identified in Japan in the 1960s and was later studied in the late 1990s by psychiatrist Tamaki Saito (1998). Today, it is framed by the DSM V TR (2023) as “Hikikomori, also known as severe social withdrawal, consists of total withdrawal from society and the pursuit of extreme degrees of social isolation and confinement by young people without regressed psychopathologies.” The objective of the research is to analyze the figure of the hikikomori and the related social phenomenon from the perspectives of sociological thought, drawing on Foucault's study of mental illness (1962), Goffman's stigma theory (1963), Bauman's reflections on liquid society (2000), and Hacking's theories on ecological niches (2004). Considering the complexity of the phenomenon, a Mixed Method approach has been adopted to overcome the limitations posed by a subject that is still relatively uncharted and multifaceted. The research is structured into three phases. The first phase involves a questionnaire administered to the parents (or guardians) of hikikomori individuals, with the collaboration of Hikikomori Italia, the largest Italian association addressing the phenomenon. The second phase relies on a qualitative approach through netnography (Delli Paoli, 2022) conducted on the social network “Telegram” within a group composed of hikikomori individuals. The final part of the research involved implementing a Delphi survey (Linstone, Murray, 1975) with experts in the field, who in this case were identified as scholars specializing in the Hikikomori phenomenon.