I remember a science fiction story (but not the title) about a time where everyone lived in rooms with wall to wall TVs and never went out. They ordered food, etc and communicated via computers integrated with the TV. What a crazy idea that was.
JAPAN: I knew him only as the boy in the kitchen.
His mother, Yoshiko, wouldn’t tell me his name, fearful that neighbours in this Tokyo suburb might discover her secret.
Her son is 17 years old. Three years ago he was unhappy in school and began to play truant.
Then one day, he walked into the family’s kitchen, shut the door and refused to leave.
Since then, he hasn’t left the room or allowed anyone in.
The boy in the kitchen suffers from a social disorder known in Japan as hikikomori, which means to withdraw from society.
One psychologist has described the condition as an “epidemic”, which now claims more than a million sufferers in their late teens and twenties.
The trigger is usually an event at school, such as bullying, an exam failure or a broken romance.
A filmmaker named Francesco Jodice has made a film and posted it online about the phenomenon. There’s also an extensive Wikipedia entry on it.
welp.. i can only assume that the sword is some kinda bong…
nice place
can we get a shot with him and the pizza guy?
The book you are thinking of sounds like Fahrenheit 451
It’s more like E.M. Forster’s THE MACHINE STOPS
It sounds like it could be from one of Asimov’s Robot Novels.
5 it sounds like it could be from one of Asimov’s Robot Novels.
I agree with Charles.
It could be The Naked Sun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_Sun
From the Wiki entry:
Lower income families do not have hikikomori children because a socially withdrawing youth is forced to work outside the home if he cannot finish school, and for this reason isolation in the room stops at an early stage.
That should tell us everything we need to know about treatment, and yet:
Japanese experts usually suggest waiting until the hikikomori reemerges, whereas western doctors suggest dragging the hikikomori back into society, by force if necessary.
This guy is ahead of his time – in the future in an extremely over populated society everyone will be forced into smaller and smaller rooms – like the Cube, but without the gore, plot, or a soundtrack.
I’m going to play the bad-parenting-card on this one. The kid’s parents need a smack for being so ignorant and stupid of the situation. It’s obvious that he’s being spoiled in one way or another.
With the world the way it is today I can’t blame him.
#5&6: I think you’ve got it. That sounds right. I was thinking it was one of the Robot books, but wasn’t sure. Thanks!
Room for 1 plz…
Go outside, so what (?), it’s the same thing. I left my 88 square foot apartment today to have coffee and granola with fresh fruit and milk at one of my favorite cafes in the Village. The place was packed but nobody was there. Everywhere I looked everyone was buried into their books or laptops. Amazingly the food there is very good and the paintings on the wall by some contemporary artist were astonishingly tasteful. I spent fifteen minutes just studying the eye-of-the-tiger painting. But again, everyone else was in their own little world. They were in their hikikomori bubble in a public place instead of their home. Anyway I was happy. I enjoyed the excellent Jazz music playing, watched some (idiot) guy behind me try to pick up a hot babe (he failed miserably because he initiated talk without a cue from her– though it was amusing), and I watched through the pane glass window the wind stirring up awnings and street signs. I WAS THE ONLY PERSON PRESENT!
We have the same thing here in the United States. It’s called Everquest and World of Warcraft. It’s more fun to live a virtual life than to deal with a real one I guess.
Hey, if I could work from home I would. People (in the office and on the road) irritate the hell out of me.
This kind of thing doesn’t happen to chinese folk, why? Because the chinese way of solving things is by beating the Sh*t out of the kid into submission and thus the fear of another beating forces the kid to study, and if that is not enough, ridiculing his/her depression along with the beating should do the trick.
@16
Good old school healthy approach to raising children 😉
Unfortunately this natural approach has been often forbidden and long forgotten in most western countries 🙁