Internet Addiction, Smartphone Addiction, and Hikikomori Trait in Japanese Young Adult: Social Isolation and Social Network.

Masaru Tateno,Wataru Ukai,Takahiro A Kato,Hiroaki Kubo,Alan R Teo,Ryoko Katsuki,Junichiro Kanazawa

doi:10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00455

Abstract

Background: As the number of internet users increases, problems related to internet overuse are becoming more and more serious. Adolescents and youth may be particularly attracted to and preoccupied with various online activities. In this study, we investigated the relationship of internet addiction, smartphone addiction, and the risk of hikikomori, severe social withdrawal, in Japanese young adult. Methods: The subjects were 478 college/university students in Japan. They were requested to complete the study questionnaire, which consisted of questions about demographics, internet use, the Internet Addiction Test (IAT), the Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS)–Short Version (SV), the 25-item Hikikomori Questionnaire (HQ-25), etc. We investigated the difference and correlation of the results between two groups based on the purpose of internet use or the total score of each self-rating scale, such as screened positive or negative for the risk of internet addiction, smartphone addiction, or hikikomori. Results: There was a trend that males favored gaming in their internet use while females used the internet mainly for social networking via smartphone, and the mean SAS-SV score was higher in females. Two-group comparisons between gamers and social media users, according to the main purpose of internet use, showed that gamers used the internet longer and had significantly higher mean IAT and HQ-25 scores. Regarding hikikomori trait, the subjects at high risk for hikikomori on HQ-25 had longer internet usage time and higher scores on both IAT and SAS-SV. Correlation analyses revealed that HQ-25 and IAT scores had a relatively strong relationship, although HQ-25 and SAS-SV had a moderately weak one. Discussion: Internet technology has changed our daily lives dramatically and altered the way we communicate as well. As social media applications are becoming more popular, users are connected more tightly to the internet and their time spent with others in the real world continues to decrease. Males often isolate themselves from the social community in order to engage in online gaming while females use the internet as to not be excluded from their communications online. Mental health providers should be aware of the seriousness of internet addictions and hikikomori.

Highlights

The number of internet users in Japan has exceeded 100 million and continues to grow
Internet addiction has not been listed as a psychiatric disorder in the DSM-5 in 2013 [12] nor the International Classification of Diseases (ICD)-11, which was released in June 2018 [13]
We investigated the relationship between internet use and hikikomori trait in Japanese young adults

Summary

Introduction

The number of internet users in Japan has exceeded 100 million and continues to grow. As the number of internet users increases, problematic internet use, or internet addiction, has been rising as well. Young, an American psychologist, initially proposed provisional diagnostic criteria for subjects with problematic internet use with her naming of “internet addiction” in reference to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) IV [6] criteria for substance dependence in 1996 [7]. Young revised her definition of internet addiction, which made it more similar to an impulse control disorder in DSM-IV [8]. It has been controversial whether internet addiction is a clinical entity in psychiatry since Young’s proposal about two decades ago [5, 9,10,11]. We investigated the relationship of internet addiction, smartphone addiction, and the risk of hikikomori, severe social withdrawal, in Japanese young adult

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