Hidden Youth and the Virtual World

The process of social censure and empowerment

Gloria Chan, Gloria Hongyee Chan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781138604599
• eBook ISBN: 9781317513247
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Educational Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Hidden Youth and the Virtual World examines the phenomenon of 'hidden youth' or hikikomori, as it is better known in Japan as well as Hong Kong. Exposure to the Internet has allowed these young persons to develop a high level of capability within the virtual world, however these are skills that are not highly valued by society. This book uncovers the truth about hidden youth, the causes, coping strategies, power relations between them and adults in society, and their relationship with the virtual world. Key topics surrounding the phenomenon of hidden youth are explored in detail, including:

• The framework of Social Censure Theory
• The theoretical concepts of hegemony and the impact that labelling by the Government, the media and institutions has had on hidden youth
• The willingness of the hidden youth to remain hidden within the virtual world
• Subcultures as a platform for hidden youth empowerment

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This is a particularly useful volume to researchers in child and adolescent psychology, clinical psychology, counselling and psychotherapy, school psychology, sociology, social work, and youth policy; as well as youth workers, school counsellors and mental health professionals, and will appeal to the interest of both academics and practitioners alike.

1 Introduction

The phenomenon of hidden youth originated in Japan, coined by Saito as hikikomori in 1998 (Saito, 1998). According to Saito (1998), hikikomori are young people who have retreated from such social connections and participations as school and work, and instead are secluded at home for at least six months. Since then, hikikomori has captured the attention of the public and has triggered studies into the causes of the phenomenon, principally because the phenomenon has been widely reported by the mass media (Clinton, 2006; Howe, 2007; Jones, 2006a, 2006b; Nimura, 2006; Ryall, 2003; Thorne, 2007). A number of reports are related to hikikomori involving delinquent and violent acts including hijacking, kidnapping (Larimer, 2000; Rees, 2002; Tolbert, 2002) and homicide (Lewis, 2004; Watts, 2002), which portray hikikomori as a serious social problem that needs to be attended to by the public.

The phenomenon of hikikomori was originally not attended to in other countries, since it was believed to be a cultural-bound phenomenon associated with the unique culture of Japan. First, Japanese culture stresses “communal commitment over individualism” (Fink, 2002: 25); when individuals fail to find ways to conform to the collective standards, their only option is to withdraw from society. Second, Japanese culture places higher expectations on men than women in terms of their smooth transition from prestigious education to prestigious work; when individuals, especially men, cannot withstand the pressure, they simply withdraw from society. Third, amae (i.e. an over-dependent mother–son relationship) is not uncommon in Japan; such a relationship results in hikikomori, either because it promotes a child’s reliance on its mother or because the child shows dissatisfaction toward this relationship through seclusion (Rees, 2002).

Nevertheless, as time passes and more studies relating to the phenomenon have emerged, it has been found that hidden youth is not culturally specific to Japan. Similarly, the term youth issue was also coined in Hong Kong in 2004. According to LET’s Walk (Life Engagement Training Scheme)¹ of the Hong Kong Christian Service (2005, 2007), there were around 6,000 hidden youths in Hong Kong in 2004; in 2007, the hidden youth population tripled to 18,500. In 2014, the number of hidden youths aged 15 to 19 was even estimated to be as high as 100,000 (“Parents need to help,” 2014). These figures indicate that hidden youth exists not only in Japan, but also in Hong Kong, and that the phenomenon is displaying an increasing trend. This has led to the emergence of social services for hidden youth in Hong Kong.

The increasing trend of the hidden youth phenomenon has attracted attention from the mass media in Hong Kong also, and various discourses have emerged. In early local studies, the term hidden youth described a loss of social status, having low education level, skill level, and motivation level, lower class, and engaging in prolonged use of the Internet (Wong and Ying, 2005, 2006); subsequently, hidden youth was even exaggerated as being a worrying problem in society (e.g. Pang, 2005) and was distorted as linking with depression (e.g. “Hidden youth and depression,” 2014; The Salvation Army Yaumatei Integrated Service for Young People, 2006), delinquent behavior (e.g. “16-year-old youngster,” 2010) and drug taking (e.g. “Hidden youth drug-taking experience”, 2011; “Phone apps help assess”, 2013). This portrayed and even strengthened the negative image of hidden youth in Hong Kong as a worrying, problematic group of individuals. However, according to the researcher’s prior research, and case work and group work experience with hidden youth in a local social service center since 2007, the situations of individuals reported in these studies and news reports appear not to fully reflect the whole hidden youth phenomenon.

During service provision, it has been found that different hidden youth experience different challenges and situations. Youths who have withstood a hidden situation for two years experience similar situations to those described in present studies, such as having a poor quality of life (Nonaka & Sakai, 2014), low self-esteem (Olejarz, 2011), and finding it difficult to break through the hidden situation (Saito, 2002). However, where youths have engaged in a hidden situation for a longer period, they no longer perceive themselves as sufferers. Rather, they view being hidden as a preferred lifestyle. Moreover, it is observed that some hidden youth have their own thoughts and beliefs (Chan & Lo, 2010), and are satisfied with their hidden lifestyle. Some of the hidden youth involve in prolonged online subcultural engagement, from which they discover their own strengths and resources, develop positive identities and achieve a sense of empowerment (Chan & Lo, 2010).

Moreover, it has been found that some hidden youth cases even use the hidden situation as a resistance against adult society. This reflects the fact that the engagement of youths in hidden behavior is not a clear-cut phenomenon, and that there are varieties of cases of hidden youth. It also illustrates how most existing studies, both in Japan and Hong Kong, have adopted an adult perspective in viewing hidden youth, and have used moral-political judgments to criticize hidden youth as a social problem, rather than investigating more comprehensively the innersense of youths and the reasons for engaging in hidden behavior from the youth perspective.

Hidden youth in Hong Kong refers to young people who retreat from social connections and participation for at least six months (Chan & Lo, 2010, 2013a, 2013b, 2014a, 2014b, 2014c). Although such definitions and descriptions are neutral, the images of hidden youth revealed in news reports are not only descriptive, but are also embedded with heavy projective negative labeling that these young people’s deviance should receive public attention; in other words, they project negativity. Under the portrayal of the mass media, hidden youth is described as being purposeless, a worrying social problem (Pang, 2005), and mass media discusses how these young people should be treated and cured (“Agencies urge for more resources,” 2009).

From a sociological perspective, such negative labeling of an individual’s behavior reflects the use of moral judgment by the dominant class, including the rulers, elites, and professionals who are in powerful positions in society (Sumner, 1990). This notion originates from Sumner’s (1990) concept of deviance. According to Sumner (1990), deviance is not simply a violation of norms, but rather represents a “non-conformity with other’s expectations in a given social system” (p. 17). It is a “product of an ideology of the definers” (p. 22), a political or moral activity initiated by the dominant class, due to conflicts of interest with the dominant (Sumner, 1990). In other words, applying these notions to the context of hidden youth in Hong Kong, hidden youth are viewed as deviant in society not because they are deviant by nature, but because they breach the rules of the dominant class (Thio, 1973) which brings about “feelings of disapproval” (Sumner, 1990, p. 17) from the dominant class.

Using this perspective of deviance to look at the situation of hidden youth, the reason for their being disapproved of by mainstream society relates to their violation of the mainstream expectations for youths – the promising youth. The promising youth are young people who have visions and dreams (“Once thought to retire,” 2008), have high academic achievement, work for society pragmatically (“Repay,” 2009) and have studied abroad and have professional qualifications (“IVE proposes higher diplomas,” 2009). Young people who have these qualities are highly valued by Hong Kong society, as they fit the characteristics of good, capable learners (Education Commission, 2000; Mok, 2003) who are beneficial for the development of a knowledge-based society in Hong Kong (Lau, 2003). Contrary to this, the hidden youth show characteristics deviant from the promising youth; being perceived as less likely to contribute to society in terms of knowledge and labor, hidden youth are undesired by the dominant and are even viewed as a threat to their political interests (Sumner, 1990). Hence, these young people in Hong Kong are denounced as purposeless and lazy (Tien & Chow, 2007), as a moral judgment signifying their failure to meet the expectations and requirements of the dominant class.

From a Social Censure perspective (Sumner, 1990), the hidden youth are viewed as a group of young people that should be managed and “set apart” (Szasz, 1973, pp. xxv–xxvi) from society by the dominant class, since they are harmful to the wellbeing of society. As a result, to facilitate its social control, safeguard its interests and attain a hegemonic bloc, the dominant class disguises its interests and aims whilst simultaneously creating discourses of hidden youth with a “selective sprinkling of reality” (Sumner, 1981, p. 279), as well as making use of its power to cause penetration of its discourses into the public through the media (Sumner, 1990). Moreover, the power of the dominant class allows it to easily “include what should be excluded” (Sumner, 1990, p. 26), such as forces of law and other institutions, in order to reconstruct the reality and justify the discourses (Young, 1971).

In the context of Hong Kong, it is observed that education programs are function-based and work-related, and are highly inclined towards certain industries (e.g. business) (Poon & Wong, 2008); youth services (Social Welfare Department, 2015) and the police force (The Hong Kong Police Force, 2015) all serve to nurture contributive future leaders in society. As such, the preference and discourse of the dominant—that young people should be promising youth and contribute to society—becomes a reality, sustained in a society that blocks any “clear-headed enquiry” (Sumner, 1981, p. 279) into the total nature and other possibilities of youth. Within such an environment, youths, including the hidden youth who show different characteristics and behavioral patterns to the promising youth, are thus censured and marked out as “deviant” (Roberts, 1993, p. 171); nobody is concerned with the truthfulness of these moral judgments and neither are they concerned with discovering any other side of these youths. Hence, to summarize, the moral judgments imposed on hidden youth fits into the nature of social censure. From a Social Censure perspective, the censure of hidden youth is caused by their political and moral conflicts with the dominant class, not by any natural characteristics. The censure of hidden youth by the dominant class is used to signify, denounce, and regulate, reflecting the will of the dominant class to make the world less chaotic, but “not to explain” (Roberts, 1993; Sumner, 1990, p. 36).

Under the standards and preferences of the dominant for the promising youth, all youths will be judged and evaluated according to this judgment. In other words, all youths are under social censure. Ever since young people have been expected to be a good promising youth in adult society, they have been victims of the power structure, shouldering great societal expectations and responsibilities, and subjected to regulation, control, and categorization based on the judgments of the dominant (Roberts, 1993). From a Social Censure perspective (Sumner, 1990), the enactment of censure on subordinates will cause continuous resentment, resistance and redefinition by these oppositions (Sumner, 1990, pp. 27–28). Simply put, the youth and the dominant class are engaged in continuous power dynamics, in which the dominant class engages in various attempts to “destroy, colonize or police the cultures” of the youth (Sumner, 1990, pp. 27–28).

Applying Social Censure Theory to the context of the youth in Hong Kong, in the face of censure youths may engage in various forms of resistance as a coping...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Hidden Youth and the Virtual World
• Routledge Studies in Asian Behavioural Sciences
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Literature Review
• 3 When Social Censure Meets Hidden Youth
• 4 The Creation and Enactment of Social Censure: From Deviant Youth to Hidden Youth
• 5 The Coping Strategies and Resistance of Hidden Youth
• 6 Virtual World and Hidden Youth
• 7 Subculture as a Platform to Empower Hidden Youth
• 8 Conclusion and Remarks
• Index