how the attention economy created our lost generation

ひきこもりHikikomori is a societal movement which appeared in the 1980’s in Japan where a part of the population decided to not leave their home or interact with people for at least 6 months, only connecting through social media and TV. This term was simultaneously coined by the psychologist Tamaki Saito.

This societal movement is intimately linked to the system of the attention economy, first talked about in 1971 by the economist and political scientist Herbert A.Simon.

He described how the abundance of information, and consequently the scarcity of attention, resulted in attention being used as currency, through advertisements and so-cial media platforms, in a new economic system within the online world. Creating what we know as ‘the lost genera-tion’ of new wave hermits.

Over one hundred years later, it’s fair to ask; How the at-tention economy created our lost generation?

the future dream achievement

anky coelen héloïse floc’h lewis duckworth milan baas sarah hasni

In the 2010’s our community was very discriminated against. There were many initiatives to try and eliminate this type of lifestyle. At the forefront was the NPO Newstart, founded by Noki Futagami.

Halfway houses were made for recovering Hikikomori. They would pay rent to live there and had to do some part time work and charity volunteer-ing, organised by Newstart.

They would make them give up there phones and were only allowed to watch TV in the communal sitting room. Computer games and social me-dia were not allowed, In an attempt to disconnect them from the attention economy.

NEW START

RENTAL SISTER

Because it was a shame to have a ‘Hikikomori’ child, many families kept the conditions a secret and struggled to get proper help. This is where the rental sisters came in. Often women, rental sisters would gain trust from the Hikikomori and build their confidence in an attempt to get them out of their rooms, taking from 4 months to 2 years to achieve.

There was also a program called “Free Space”; this group provided oppor-tunities for the youth to socialise with others. Most of the participants would slowly start to take part in social activities. Organisers were advised to make activities informal, loosely scheduled, flexible, occasional and even sudden. They often started by connecting to their family again.

INTEGRATION

HALF WAY HOUSE

It was thought that the Hikiko-mori lifestyle was bad be-cause it thrived on post-truth era: when factual information is not relevant anymore. Hikikomori people live in a closed-off environment, disconnected from the true world, and it was said that this was negative. But could it been seen as liberating? The infinitely growing sea of online information Hikikomori spend their days in drowned out the truth, to the point where there was no collective memory of news. Providing a strong foundation for the Future Dream Achievement to build on.

Intellectuals like Andrew Odlyzko countered the negative idea that society had about Hikikomori and truth, and instead embraced the naturality of the post-truth era society was beginning to go into.

He helped people understand that post truth was simply the next evolution-ary step and that fighting it was both useless and constraining. It was this progressive attitude that pathed the way for the Future Dream Achievement.

SHIMBUM

POST TRUTH

To support and understand Hikikomoris within their life, a veteran named Naohiro Kinura (who hardly left his house for 10 years) decided to start a news paper written by Hikikomoris for Hikikomoris. Originally to inspire the Hikikomori population to look outside their four walls it actually helped them come to terms with their lifestyle, and embrace it.

round.chicken90 : @angel95@spec.offer8ac@dutchguy98@hello_78did you know this? angel95 : wow! i never knew the future achieve-ment started like this. spec.offer8ac : I’ll read this later. round.chicken90 : crazy isn’t it. imagine if every-one tried to get us out the whole timedutchguy98 : yo why did you tag me in this old shit. i can make more spending my time elsewherehello_78 : i should have got more than 30 credits for looking at this articleround.chicken90 : chill dutchguy it’s kinda inter-estingdutchguy98 : is this the time of Tomaki Saito and Teruo Miyanashihello_78 : ye it isround.chicken90 : yeaangel95 : ye they were both pioneering to stop Hikiko-mori though which is crazy because they basically wrote the ‘future dream achievement manifesto’dutchguy98 : no way that’s madround.chicken90 : they were both just researching into it tho. i don’t think they supported itangel95 : yeah they were actually researching into stopping hikikomori but all the information they found just got used to created the ‘future dream manifesto’round.chicken90 : yeah but they weren’t the guys who start the credits right?angel95 : no that was an-Drew Odlyzsko i think, he was pro for the post truth thinghello_78 : i never knew how everyone was trying to stop it back thendutchguy98 : and all the rental sisters is such a weird word for friends round.chicken90 : but why wouldn’t you want to live like we do nowdutchguy98 : yeah this life is the best man spce.offer8ac : just read this. round.chicken90 : we can basically do what ever we want

It has taken one hundred years, since the founding of the Future Dream Achievement in 2019, to get to this modern age in which we are now, where Hikikomori is finally ac-cepted. Although there was a lot of backlash, the fact that design innovation could cater to a improved Hikikomori lifestyle helped in the spread of this idea that has now be-come the norm.

The overabundance of information and hyper-stimulation in the internet accustomed us to always want more and more online information; and the pressures of the real world drew us to this virtual world and participate in this attention economy. The generation who pioneered the hermit life was lost in all of the information of the virtual sphere, and brought us this new era of modern non-interaction.

Using the online world to our advantage we were able to create the strong society we know today. Creating a temporary workforce based on credits earned through attention, that let’s us chose how we spend our time. Fully personalised and sculpted interactive worlds allow us to live the life we longed for all those years ago.

TODAY IN 2119