The Influence of New Technologies on the Social Withdrawal (Hikikomori Syndrome) Among Developed Communities, Including Poland

Abstract

Hikikomori social withdrawal syndrome was first diagnosed in Japan and means a person whohas been isolated from society to an extreme degree. She/he does not attend school or go to work.They do not attend university, they constantly remain at home and most often keep contact with theoutside world using new technologies. Hikikomori syndrome is most often recognized as a charac-teristic problem occurring among Asian societies. Meanwhile, the growing dependence on new tech-nologies among Western societies, and in particular, on the Internet, has caused social withdrawalto become a global problem. Human relationships began to move from the real world to the virtualworld, which nowadays is full of communication facilities and allows people to establish relation-ships with other people without leaving their homes with the help of social media, which are currentlypacked with advanced solutions connecting people of similar interests or views. All this means thatnowadays it is easy to withdraw from physical social life without losing virtual contact with others.