Problem of social alienation in the 21st century Japanese society

n this paper, the author analyzes a mysterious phenomenon of voluntary seclusion that had emerged as a mental deviation in Japan in the late 20th century, having spread all over the countries of ―the golden billion‖ since that time. On the basis of numerous works by Japanese and Western sociologists, psychiatrists, ethnographers, and economists characteristic features of the social group called hikikomori are given a definition. Factors that had specific impact on its emergence as well as the connection between the mental deviations of hikikomori and historical changes in modern Japanese society with IT technology shifts at the background are scrutinized in comparison with similar processes in other developed countries of the world. The author also focuses on the methods of treatment of this ―culture-bound syndrome‖ suggested by contemporary psychiatry and the prospects of inevitable expansion of the dangerous social epidemic disease regarding dramatic growth of hikikomori among the younger generations in the first decades of the 20th century.