People seem to like this so I’ll keep it coming…comments very welcome.

In Japan there is a social phenomenon called ‘Hikikomori’. The phrase roughly translates as ‘withdrawal’ and refers to boys who retreat into their bedrooms and rarely, if ever, come out. In one case a young man in his early twenties shut his bedroom door and played video games, watched television and slept for fourteen years. Food was supplied by his mother who lived downstairs, virtually alone. The phenomenon is a particularly Japanese condition although nobody can quite understand who or what is to blame. According to experts there are somewhere between one hundred thousand and one million Hikikomori in Japan, caused by everything from absent (always-working) fathers to over protective mothers.

There are a number of simple explanations for problems like these and most are wrong.Some people blame individualism; others point the figure at urbanisation, technology, education or even government. The reality is it’s all of these but ultimately we have nobody to blame but ourselves. We, and only we, have let this happen. And if it’s like this now what will it be like in another fifty years?