Japan's Young Are Now Its Loneliest Generation, Overtaking The Old. Why? | Insight | Full Episode

I am 35 now, have been single my whole life. I don't have close friends or any friends who care. In recent years I started solo travel and solo shopping. Eating alone and watching movies alone have been the norm. Sometimes when the feeling of loneliness hits, it's really painful.

"If I prioritize myself, my mother will suffer." I felt that.

I went into severe depression while living alone in city (with body aches, lost memory and no motivation to do ANYTHING. Getting out of bed was tiring. Eating food, bathing, everything was tiring). When I stopped going to job, my family finally took notice and I had to come back to my family for 1 year and live without doing my job. Now we live together in the city where I work. I was too late to realise, I think I haven't recovered fully. My memory has become a little weak. I have lost my hobbies and forgot how to draw. I can't remember much of my life. Please don't be like that. Search for the symptoms of depression and see if you have them before it's too late. I was an introvert, with no close friends and had a strong bond with my family. Living alone isn't for me.

Once you feel comfortable being alone, it becomes more addictive. Being alone means, your mind is not contaminated by society and its a beautiful thing.

“I use to think that, the worst thing in life was to end up all alone. It is not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people that make you feel alone” R. Williams, Actor (1951-2014).

As someone who got backstabbed many times by friends and loved ones, I can understand why some people have trust issues and prefer to be alone. It comes to a point where you will feel lonely at times and you wanted the human companionship. You give yourself another chance and you find new friends, but soon to realise they are not your true friends. No one really cares about you. It's a harsh world out there

I wish they would show a documentary like this on Japanese TV. Instead, they only show superficial programs and ignore controversial topics. In Japan, if you don’t talk about a problem, it doesn’t exist.

I have friends who always take very beautiful selfies .. have thousandsssss of likes etc on their Instagram and stuffs... They are not unattractive people... But they are lonely. It's really weird as it would seem like they are well loved and have many friends. It's a really weird world we are living in right now. The world is sick.

tbh coming from a turbulent past with so much abuse and bad relationships, being alone makes me so much happier

I'm an American permanent resident of Japan. In my experience and those of the mixed families around me the atmosphere for children can significantly inhibit communication skills. They aren't kidding about "rigid social norms," either. Japan is a very risk-adverse culture. Risks are seen as far more threatening than in almost every other developed country. Starting friendships or even conversations can be difficult for all but the most confident and conversation. My daughter is half-Japanese, and her communication ability - ability to start and maintain a conversation - in English and Japanese are starkly different, even though she's fluent in both languages. She often offers what I call "Japanese excuses" for not doing things with friends: instead of initiating something she considers all of the possible problems that might arise as 10x more significant than they are. In this environment screens become even more attractive and isolating. Many of my university students have stunted communication skills. They claim to be shy, but it's really a lack of experience. It doesn't help that society is still intensely gender-segregated, at least compared to the west. When I was young, in the 70s and 80s, it was unusual for boys and girls to be friends. Young people in the US today are far more likely to have friends of another gender, but in Japan it feels like it's 50 years ago. EDIT: Just to be clear, everyone here knows this, and there are many, many, wonderful people working on this issue. It's just really difficult to work against cultural norms, and it might be another generation before these problems are really dealt with.

As a 23 year old male i can say that Being alone is so relaxing but feeling loneliness is depressing

I don’t mind being lonely, I love being lonely actually. The pain hits when you are lonely within a large group of people.

I don't depend on others for socializing. People just let you down. I've lived this solo katsu style for over 15 years. I lived in Japan for 9 years too, and Japan is designed for this solo katsu style. I love Japan for that. Learning to be alone, but not feel lonely is the best thing you can do for yourself.

If I feel lonely at any point in time, I would just watch these kinds of videos, removing the hate from my fake friends

As a tourist to Japan, I felt that its citizens are probably the most disciplined group I have seen anywhere in the world. They will pick up rubbish left behind accidentally by others and will queue up even at busy train stations

It was when i enjoyed my time alone and when i loved myself when i met the love of my life. I think we attract more people when we are happy with ourselves. Hope more people can experience the same someday

While, I'm enjoy to be alone, I'm exhausted to get along with others.

This mass loneliness of the youth is not just in Japan, but in a lot of affluent countries. It's a side-effect of a good and peaceful society with internet technology. Our societies on earth is the best it's been in centuries. Don't believe me? Read history books. Read about the atrocities, wars, financial crises, violence, ignorance that our societies endured and matured through. And they didn't have internet back then. Bottom line, we've become soft due to affluence. A lot of us live in a level of comfort that our existence has never experienced before and it caused our brains and hormones to not function the way we had hoped.

This why I am happy as an Indian, here we live with our parents, it is noisy but not a lonely, specially when you are sick. Right now I am sick and resting in peace.

I can feel the guy caring for his mom. Only me and my ageing mom were left at home. All of the responsibilities from financial stuff to cleaning were left on me. Good thing is that I'm working from home for most of the days. But also due to this, my social life became almost zero, even mere going out with colleagues became almost impossible. I wish to get into a relationship, but due to many responsibilities at home, I can't even consider it at the moment.