WHAT IS AND WHAT ISN'T HIKIKOMORI (part 1) Hi all, I've written this article but I'm not sure it's completely correct. Please help me (it's a bit long, I know, but I think it could be interesting) WHAT IS AND WHAT ISN'T HIKIKOMORI Slowly the attention on hikikomori phenomenon is growing. Articles that talk about it are multiplying on the web and, in recent years, the issue has been debated repeatedly on television. This attention is certainly positive because it helps to raise awareness and to sensitize more and more people on the phenomenon. However, dealing with such a complex issue without have first adequately informed, it's very easy to fall into error, be superficial, or make a real bad information. Frequently hikikomori is exchanged with diseases which have nothing to do with it, causing a lot of confusion around the phenomenon and, consequently, preventing those are in this condition to identify themselves. For this reason, before understand what is hikikomori, it's important to establish what is NOT hikikomori: Hikikomori is not Internet Addiction As stated several times in this blog, the use of the web by hikikomori must be intended as a result of isolation and not as a cause. The phenomenon has broken out in Japan before the spread of Personal Computers. This means that before there was Internet the isolation of hikikomori was absolute. From this point of view, the use of the web can be interpreted in a positive way, because it allows the guys to continue to cultivate social relationships that, otherwise, they would not have. Hikikomori is not depression Many thinks that the isolation of hikikomori it's only a consequence of a depressive state. We have already discussed why this is a false belief, a blunt instrument. First, in accordin with the Japanese Ministry of Health in 2013, the hikikomori is NOT a disease (unlike depression). It was in fact demonstrated the existence of a "primary hikikomori", a hikikomori that develops before and apart from other diseases; a withdrawal that was not derived from any pre-existing mental disorder.