Author Archives: Henry Barragan

Grisafe, Michael. “Can Culture Create Mental Disease? The Rise of “Hikikomori” in the Wake of Economic Downturn in Japan – Mind the Science Gap.” Mind the Science Gap RSS. N.p., 16 Nov. 2012. Web. 03 Aug. 2015.

As some might think that the effects of Hikikomori only effect the people around them, it could actually effect the surrounding citizens of japan. Michael Grisafe is the author of this article that I am presenting you today. He brings up the argument that Hikikomori can affect the future of japans economy a lot more than expected.

This articles seems very credible for what it is worth. The author may not be a reporter, but is actually a student in grad-school at the University of Michigan. Which in turn, we know he will give us some credible evidence and several works cited to try and drive his argument to the people that are reading his weekly blog. Which brings me to who exactly is he trying to tell this message towards. I personally believe his audience are the people who worry about hikikomori and understand the functions of the economy and how in turn when one economy falls, there can be effects to the other. Some of the sources seem to be a bit outdated by a couple of years, but he still is able to drive his point across with plenty of reliable evidence.

Mr. Grisafe starts his article by asking “What happens when a society’s cultural demands can no longer keep pace with the economy reality of the world? Who bares the strain and what happens when the burden becomes too much?” Which is saying what will happen to the country once the next generation of adults have been pushed so hard by societies standards, just give up. As much as 80% of these individuals are males, and many come from middle-class homes which are able to support as they barricade themselves in their rooms, however many hikikomori seem to lead lives of isolated desperation; Mr. Grisafe expresses. Traditionally, Japanese institutions have favored a very structured transition of youth from high school, to secondary school (College), to long term employment. However, those rare individuals who failed to follow this path and immediately obtain a job after graduation from secondary school were considered failures and rarely able to re-enter the labor market at the same level in the future. This is relevant to the fact when Mr. Grisafe explains that 50% of high school graduates go on to complete 4-year universities, up to 20% of them can only find low-paying jobs after graduation.

According to the author, some sociologist have suggested that these individuals are not rebels in the sense that they are rejecting one ideology and accepting another, but rather individuals defining themselves by rejecting the core values of the Japanese work and social ethic itself. They assert that the hikikomori are the result of these youth comparing themselves to the increasingly unattainable success of their parents. This topic has grown increasingly urgent in japan as the so called “First generation” of hikikomori who have been living with their parents for the past 20 years are approaching 40. Many worry not only for the fate of these aging hikikomori, but the social and economic consequences for japan as the hikikomori’s parents retire and pass away. As their parents die off, japan will be faced with the very real problem of integrating a large population of socially disengaged and unskilled individuals into society. This makes hikikomori both a personal and a potential economic problem.

Wang, Shirley S. “The Fight to Save Japan’s Young Shut-Ins.” WSJ. The Wall Street Journal, 26 Jan. 2015. Web. 29 July 2015.

Shirley S. Wang is a reporter for the New York Times and is the author of the article “The Fight to Save Japan’s Young Shut-Ins. Hikikomori, a word used by the Japanese that is used to describe someone who has left the reality of their lives to seclude themselves in their rooms. It’s a major problem in Japan, growing in rapid numbers every day. However they are more than just anti-social people who just don’t like to go out. They’re people who given up on their lives, they choose to stay indoors all the time, deny any form of interactivity with the outside world.

The Author is very credible to talk about this topic. She works for the New York Times, which is one of the biggest new sources in the country. She also has some very credible sources ranging from a American hikikomori that have been isolated for 6 months, to true the extreme hikikomori who have been inside their homes for about 14 years or even more. The text even includes very credible elements such as personal interviews to scientific statistics that have been recorder the past few years. She even cites her sources for her information.

According to Ms. Wang, the puzzling condition is often thought of as a Japanese phenomenon, affecting an estimated 500,000 to two million in japan. She even goes on to say that similar reports have been shown up in the U.S, Hong Kong and Spain. In Japan, hikikomori has been a household word since the 1990s, with many experts calling it one of the biggest social and health problems plaguing the country, Ms. Wang explains. Yet the causes and treatments of the condition-or even whether it’s a mental illness or not-remain poorly understood. Takahiro Kato, a professor in the neuropsychiatry department at Kyushu University in Fukuoka, is working with support centers to study hikikomori in a more rigorous and systematic way. Dr. Kato and a team of Japanese and international collaborators that include Alan Teo, a psychiatry professor at Oregon Health & science University, want to better define what hikikomori is. They also hope to understand the social and biological underpinnings of the condition to improve treatments.

According to Ms. Wang, Japanese experts point to strict parenting practices and pressure that children feel to succeed as contributing factors. Yet hikikomori often live with their parents, and these parents can be soft in forcing their children to go to school or leave the home, they just leave them be. People can even become hikikomori for the smallest of reason, Yu-chan, a 27-year old woman who considers herself no longer hikikomori, is working to home her computer skills to get a job, which would be her first. She said she was comfortable speaking, but her face immediately flushed a light pink. She trembled slightly during a brief interview when discussing the 14 years where she stayed home because of hurtful words friends said to her when she was 10. Ms. Wang even reports of a child who wasn’t able to recover until she was at the age of 33, and she started to become a hikikomori at the age of 14.

Shirley Wang concludes her article by reporting that, that the hikikomori syndrome has become such a big problem that there are many shelters where these people can go and get help like a rehabilitation clinic. Hikikomori is a real cause for concern, but can be helped. As a former Hikikomori, Yu-cahn expresses that “You can’t really take back lost time, Please try to take the first step out.”

Fuchs, Erin. “Why It’s Crazy To Try To Set DUI Limits For Marijuana.” Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 19 Dec. 2013. Web. 19 July 2015.

Erin Fuchs is the senior editor at the “Business insider” website and is the author of this current article. In the article published on Business Insider.com on December 19, of 2013. She proclaims that having a law that restricts the amount of weed in you while behind the wheel is unnecessary. She specifically states that the amount of THC in your blood that is recommended for the legal limit is too low.

According to Ms Fuchs, Colorado passed a law saying that presumes that you’re too high to drive if you have 5 nanograms or more of THC per milliliter of blood, even though there is insufficient evidence to tie that level of THC to impaired driving. When it came to marijuana, the policy has never been driven by science in the country. So there has never been a presumption that a certain level of THC in your blood means your high, Fuchs Expresses. She then exclaims that now that this law is in effect, people are goanna be more afraid to drive because even though they may have not even smoked, then could still be considered high because their THC levers are above the legal limit. Even if you took it a while ago, it is possible to still have the marijuana in your system depending on how long it takes you to metabolize it.

Fuchs then reports that several states have several DUI laws concerning driving while intoxicated from drugs, and some states like Arizona and Oklahoma have a zero tolerance laws, which means if you’re caught driving under the influence than you’ll be arrested on the spot. Yet, marijuana advocates say there simply isn’t enough evidence to link certain THC levels to impaired driving.

However, Fuchs reports that, there is some evidence that it’s not a good idea to drive while high. According to an interview with Dr Marilyn Huestis, when people smoke marijuana they lose some of their peripheral vision and can also affect your perception of time. This in turn can affect your ability to make decisions, multitask, and driver’s ability to hold the vehicle in the middle of the road. Ms. Fuchs also reports that experiments where run by the Washington TV station in which people volunteer to get high on pot and then drive on a course with a safety instructor. The results; one drove too slowly, while another almost hit the stations photographer. Despite these sign that driving high might be bad, even the federal government says there’s a lack of evidence that ties a certain level THC with a certain degree of impairment, according Ms. Fuchs.

So when it comes to figuring out how much is an appropriate amount of THC levels, Erin Fuchs still believes that it’s unnecessary to have such a limit. She proclaims that some people will be able to drive perfectly at a certain level of THC intoxication, while others may be impaired – so It’s inadvisable to try and predict effects based on blood THC concentrations alone.