Hikikomori and Internet Addiction in U.S. College Students

Hikikomori is a form of extreme social withdrawal that is characterized by self-isolating in one’s living quarters. While past research had found a correlation between Hikikomori and internet addiction, the research was limited to a sample of college students in Japan. With cases of both Hikikomori and internet addiction being recognized across the globe, more research is required to investigate this correlation in non-Japanese countries. In the current study, we administered the Hikikomori Questionnaire and Young’s Internet Addiction Test to 437 US college students recruited through Prolific. We found a sizeable positive correlation between Hikikomori and internet addiction (r = .30). We also found that the correlation among the US college students in our sample did not significantly differ from the correlation among the Japanese college students in the prior study (r = .39). Although more research is required to further understand the relationship, the present results indicate that extreme social withdrawal could be a risk factor for internet addiction in the US (and vice versa).