A post in the “Don’t Fuck This Up” series. In response to comment number 46, by lolikappa.
A hikkikomori is a person who shuts themselves in and distances themselves from society. Twitter is a site that allows wide-scale socializing through massive networking. On paper, Twitter and hikkikomori should be opposite concepts, but could Twitter actually make a hikkikomori even worse? When does the line between ‘socialite’ and ‘shut-in’ begin to blur?
The Bones of It
I leave my house almost exactly four times a week, each time to attend college at the TCC Visual Arts Center in Portsmouth, Virginia. I have a handful of close friends, but I don’t go anywhere to see them – two of them live with me, and the rest of my friends invariably come over to my house when we want to hang out. We collectively will go out and do something maybe once a week, and if it’s more than just buying fast food, it’s usually to check out a book or comic store. Living such a shut-in life used to mean that I was an anti-social hikkikomori, but that can’t be called the case anymore.
After all, how can I be called anti-social when I speak directly to as many as one hundred people on a daily basis? Twitter allows me to converse in real-time with people from around the world who are honestly interested in what I have to say. I know they are interested, because they ‘follow’ my updates, meaning that they have made a point to tune in directly to my voice. This is what we call ‘being social.’ Much like the common concept of a ‘popular’ person is one who is connected to a large number of people through a network of friends, I am connected to a community-worth of people via those that ‘follow’ me.
Between my blog that is currently getting between 700 and 1000 hits a day, my 130 Twitter followers, and the people I talk to over AIM, Yahoo messenger, and now Google Wave, I could almost be called hyper-social. But at what cost? It takes all of my free time to maintain such a high profile. My online presence is broad because I spend ALL of my time at my damn computer! Even though I am social, could I also be a hikkikomori because I am always shut-in?
The answer is a resounding ‘no.’ While being a shut-in is a definitive property of being a hikkikomori, the reverse is no longer true. Whereas it used to often be said that an ‘online life’ is not a ‘real life’ (hence the increasingly archaic abbreviation ‘IRL’), it’s difficult to make that claim now. Twitter is a direct reflection of the immediate thoughts and actions of the user. A blog is a projection of your personal ideas. The internet has quickly become more honest, personal, and real.
A hikkikomori just wouldn’t use Twitter or a blog or another social networking tool. My best friend is a hikkikomori – he READS Twitter, and he READS blogs (probably yours, too!) but he’s a lurker. He doesn’t want people to know and connect to him, because he isn’t social. ‘Shut in’ and ‘hikkikomori’ mean two different things – ‘shut in’ and ‘anti-social‘ mean two different things – in the current form of the digital age.
Drawing Brevity to a Parallel of Happiness
Nozomu Itoshiki-sensei from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei is always in despair. He has a definitively negative outlook on life and society in particular, and thus wishes to kill himself. When Itoshiki feels happiness, it is a fleeting emotion before he plunges back into the hell of sorrow.
One could almost say that Twitter, in it’s extreme brevity of 140 words-per-post, only offers tiny blips of socialization. Could it be that the moment after your Tweet is published and read, you are once again a lifeless hikkikomori at your desk? Does it depend on what you are doing or where you are when you Tweet? If Ghostlightning Tweets from the tennis court and I Tweet from my desk, is he being more social than I am?! Could it be that society is leaving me behind because I still live with my parents?!
ZETSUBOU SHITA!!! TWITTER HAS LEFT ME IN DESPAIR!
Lol Links:
I’d say that being a hikkikomori involves two aspects: one is obviously clamming up inside one’s abode, but the other vital part is an inability to interact with people in real life. One example I’d like to use is Satou from Welcome to the NHK, who is able to interact with people within the context of that online game he plays, but when it comes to meeting those people face to face, he utterly loses it. In your case, you might be closer to Yamazaki, Satou’s next door neighbor who exhibits hikkikomori-like tendencies, but the variety of things in which he’s engaged with hardly put them on an extreme level like Satou’s.
lol, No Name and I have joked for years that I am Yamazaki an dhe is Satou. I even tried to convince him once that we really COULD make a galge www
I like how you distinguished a participant in social media from a lurker. It does make sense that only the latter is a hikikomori.
I am imagining that I’m being anti-social tweeting on the tennis courts while in the presence of my friends. I’m beginning to see it: Me, mechafetish, and his brother having breakfast/watching anime together but tweeting wildly to unseen (would-be) conversants.
ah I see, ignoring friends to talk to web-friends. Sounds like me at my house every weekend with all my friends over and me in my room wwww
I have no interest in twitter because it strikes me as the digitized version of the worst kind of socialization: small talk. I’m a man of few words, and even then, 140-characters is way to short for me to say anything useful.
Yeah I have similar thought on this.
Tweeting, although social is really a small part of conversing with someone on a whole. Seeing someone, reacting to their body language and interacting outside of text communication is far more valuable to oneself.
It helps us to grow and to understand others. It helps forge relationships that are stronger and more trustworthy. I would use Twitter for announcements and getting a message out. But I don’t make use of it for socializing, their are less benefits for me then a real conversation with someone.
/onetrackmind
Well to both of you, I can tell you haven’t used Twitter. While it can consist of a lot of small talk , I have also had long, dep conversations on twitter with people about all sorts of things. I simply will pump out a shitton of messages at once – there’s nothing saying you can’t, anyway. It also helps that people don’t usually read your twitter unless they read other stuff by ou so convos can carry over. Almost anything GL and I discuss in Twitter will eventually cross over to AIM lol. It also allows that you can sort of bait – make an announcement to everyone, and if someone’s interested enough to reply, THEN you turn it into a real conversation.
Very interesting. As someone who spends almost all her free time at the computer, I never thought of this. I see friends in real life only once in a while but I’m constantly talking to people on my blog comments, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, and Instant Messaging. I think the fast-paced, multi-tasking lifestyle that people have nowadays is a factor as well. People are just too busy to stop by for chit chat over a cup of coffee or something. So things like Twitter and AIM let them socialize at their convenience, without having to be away from their home or workplace.
Personally, I simply can’t afford to go out to eat or fun places with friends, but my computer let’s me stay social. However, if I didn’t have Internet, I would really be a hikkikomori most of the time.
Yup, same here. Not that I can’t afford it really but my friedns and I simply never have a desire to leave the house. We’re all internet nerds and gamers, so there’s not much for us to do but go online. I talk to No Name as much over the internet as I do face-to-face (well that becomes increasingly less true as he’s over all the time)
I have a burning hatred for Twitter; to me, it represents yet another further degradation of Western civilization, following in the foot-steps of things such as consumer commercials for pharmaceuticals and the invention of automatic transmission.
Anyway, more seriously, I don’t think having an active Twitter account is being social. Twitter forces oneself to shoehorn their experiences into an extremely abbreviated form. As such, it inherently cannot be complicated, and thus is fairly dehumanizing. It also simply cannot represent true communication because it is pretty one-sided – you can answer other people’s Twitter with another Twitter, but that isn’t a conversation, its standing up, making an announcement, and then sitting down once again (Full of sound and fury, signifying nothing?).
I also disagree that there is little difference between real life and online life – if I wish to experience going to the beach in the summer, I will go to the beach, as a computer cannot replicate any piece of that experience. If I would like to go for a walk with a good friend, I would go do so; my computer won’t answer me, won’t smile, won’t let me hold its arm. I use these two examples to illustrate that the shortcomings of the online world aren’t limited to one dimension.
This, however, isn’t to say that there isn’t anything good about the online side of things, just that to attempt to say that online life isn’t very different from real life is like saying that a watermelon is much like Neptune.
I hate the beach, and I only have a couple of friends who would go for a walk with me in the park, and there isn’t going to be any smiling or arm-holding involved, lol. I have found myself able t convey all of the necessary emotions of conversation well enough trough the computer. When Ghostligthning and I talk, there can be a range from joy to sadness to anger to camaraderie that is definitely felt. WE express it through word choice, emoticons, etc. These things are not entirely different from facial expressions when used correctly. I’ve spoken to Rubio over Skype, and now I pretty much can picture his face and (hilariously accented) voice in my head when we talk.
My internet life is stupendously similar to my real life, which is me and my friends having long-winded conversations about whatever. Sure, I’ll never have an online friend whose back I can lay on like I do No Name’s, but not only do I only need one friend like that, but I feel similarly close to people I can have a good joke with.
I feel a little sad every time I realize I’m a hikkikomori, I only go out for a half hour a day to walk my dog, but then I remember that like being a recluse and observing (read: INTERNET STALKING!) people, and fandom in general. They’re interesting beasts.
Also instead of using the, as you said, increasingly archaic abbreviation ‘IRL’, you could take a page out of Shadowrun and use “In the meat.”. I think it’d be cool if this caught on.
That would be awesome if that caught on. I’ll start using that.
It’s tricky, because even if you are hyper-social in a certain sense, you still have the luxury on Twitter and AIM of formulating your thoughts and expressing them exactly as you want to. Talking with people in real life is a different ball game… So I guess I’m saying it’s possible to be both very social and a hikky. You can have your cake and eat it too.
I’m sorry if this doesn’t make much sense. I spent the evening at a bar with a friend, and now I’m a bit drunk. It’s poetic timing, I suppose.
I think I get what you mean, you can make yourself out more carefully, and that’s where we get a lot more case-by-case. Personally, I jump the gun and spit out exactly what I’m thinking both in the meat and on the computer, so there’s not a huge difference for me.
Hikikomoris wouldn’t reply to posts or tweet. The just lurk and leech, probably. Of course, my social life is totally fine with/without Twitter, blogs and the sort…but I’m not social enough for romance. Darn it.
So much great discussion happened, so I feel compelled to chip in my thoughts. A large part of socialization is the perceived social network, of people you can relate to and talk to when you need someone to listen. This offers various psychological benefits as well as health benefits, such as the most common one, protection against depressive disorders. However, since a lot of socialization’s benefits are based upon perceived socialization, if you feel empty when you speak to someone on the internet and don’t think it is socializing, it does not offer much of its benefits. The opposite is true, in that even if you have only 2 people who watch your twitter, if you believe you have a great social network that you can talk to, then you theoretically will enjoy the protective effects, including better mood and feeling of wellbeing.
So…. Pull a 1984 on yourself? 2+2=5? Changing one’s beliefs are not just fantasy though…
Ok. Its late, and I cannot form coherrent thought righ now…
But my second point is one must decide whether one would need to be hypersocial. It is true that social leaders are actually more well adjusted than their contemporary, including those who are hypersocial but not leaders, or those who are not social. However, the studies on these things are only done in adolescents, and as one enters adulthood, it is likely that whether you are hypersocial vs normal social does not make much of a difference health /psychological outcome wise. So I guess it is more of a personal choice whether one feels one needs to be hypersocial. As long as one feel that one is sufficiently social enough and that there is a good social network, one will be more protected against depression and other psychological / physical health risks.
Very good points all around, and I agree with all of this. It’s true that the sociality of the heart/mind counts for a lot of how you perceive it. As for me, I need to feel hyper-social. I have an obsession with being accepted and looked up to.
Indeed, Twitter is the real-life Zetsubo channel.
Shit this post was awesome. Well done on not fucking it up~
Like, legit, I might cite this and quote you in my EPIC TWELVE PAGE PAPER ON HIKIKKOMORI AS SEEN IN WELCOME TO THE NHK. (I cannot believe I’m in a fucking lit seminar on anime and manga. My college is fucking ridiculous.) I have no idea in what context I’d quote you, but I can totally use you in a citation, and it’ll be awesome, and claim that this is a modern Western essay on the topic. It’ll be great. Contextualize you and shit.
.lolikappa
Ahh tricky indeed. For one, unless your followers only follow a handful of users, I doubt they’ll be able to read all your tweets. I think sdshamshel tweeted something along these lines before, about the ‘law of diminishing returns’ in twitter (and even in other social networking services or social networking in general) — the more you follow, the less you’ll actually get to see. Some of them might read your tweets, but on a later date/time than when you posted it. While you can say that this allows people to gain the ability to Leap Through Time, it’s likely that the conversation will turn jagged. It’s difficult if you get used to (spoiled by?) this kind of ‘conversation’ and up unable to function well in real-life conversations, end up in what Owen referred to as e-nnui. But I don’t think that applies to you, which is good.
I do believe, though, that twitter can bring out a positive change in people. A once socially aloof person who’s not at all interested in connecting with others might change his/her ways once he/she gets to discover the great things that connecting with people (and/or being part of a community) brings, and hopefully, translates that in his/her real life world. Blogging helped boost my confidence and humility level by quite a notch, which is good.
Aaannd I think I’ll stop before I stray off from the topic any further ^^;
You are very right, but consider this. I follow around 80-90 people and there’s no way I read everything they tweet because it’s a matter of who I want to read more and a matter of when I’m on vs. when any of them are on. However, I don’t think that’s wholly different from the policy that ‘in the meat’ you cannot talk to all of your friends all of the time. I’ve got some friends who are at my house EVERY weekend, and some that are only here once every 3 or 4 weeks, so it’s not like I’m paying these people huge amounts of attention, but they are still my friends. It’s sort of like how a major socialite will have a lot of ‘friend of a friends’ who they more or less know, but only really chill with every once in a while.
The only way people tend to keep up at high speeds with a larger network is, well, cell phones, and then you’re getting into ‘our’ domain.
Hello from Russia!
Can I quote a post in your blog with the link to you?
You may have missed it last time because your post was at first caught as spam, but yes, you can quote my post. However, if you ask again, I will assume this is spam and delete all three comments.
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