Lone wolves, hikikomori, and online addiction

Many years ago while I was visiting the Czech Republic, a local told me a story about a lone wolf who one day had retreated into the mountains to live there without any human contact. I was impressed by so much courage and asked how the story went on. “Well, he shot himself a couple of years later. He had gone crazy”  was the reply.

License to use Creative Commons Zero - CC0

A psychologist would say that lone wolf had schizoid personality disorder. I have known many cases of lone wolves myself. When I was a kid there was this elderly lady who almost never left her house and kept her chickens inside. We were scared of her and considered her a witch. In the same village, there was a fool on a hill who set himself on fire. In the place where I live now as an adult, there is a loner who lives in a tiny house with his cats and almost never talks to anybody. And there is the hobo who built himself a shelter by the river and tries to survive by catching fish.

However, what turns a human into a lone wolf in the first place? The simple answer, that has become very popular nowadays: genetics. Yes, genes are responsible for almost anything from ASD and depression even to personality disorders. Poor lone wolves, blame it on their genes, there is nothing much that can be done about it. Ironically enough, lone wolves don’t reproduce genetically. Humans are programmed to be social animals, not meant to survive on their own. So, genetics can't be the whole story. 

Literature might provide a clue here, as literary experience often is human experience expressed in words that make the experience relivable for anybody. Many famous writers have celebrated outcasts and hoboism, from Steinbeck to Kerouac. In Hermann Hesse novel Steppenwolf, the protagonist Harry Haller is a lone wolf, a pacifist, once successful member of society, now turned outsider (who adores Buddha). Harry divides humankind into three tribes: the bourgeois, a more relaxed fun-loving folk and his own kind, the wolves, to which he counts artists and intellectuals. Interestingly Haller’s division almost corresponds to the fourfold division of many theories in personality psychology. I am  using Myers-Briggs and Dr Helen Fisher’s terminology below:

I have argued for an evolutionary origin of these types before, bourgeois = farmers, fun-loving folk = pastoralists and wolves = hunter-gatherers. Why out of these three different “neurotribes” should hunter-gatherers be the ones who become lone wolves most frequently? The answer lies in their genetic programme: they are not programmed to value material goods over human relationships, status and a hierarchical social structure/authority. What is more, hunter-gatherer types, in particular in the original introverted form (IN types), have become rare, only approximately 10% of the population. A lot of introverted intuitive (IN) types actually don’t know any other person of their type in real life (they might also not be aware of them as they tend to keep their circle of acquaintances small). However, they do get to know others like them online, usually the more remote and the fewer users there are the more likely they will find them. Quora is such a place, a social network that has comparatively few users and is relatively unknown. A social network made up of mostly lone wolves.

You will also find a lot of lone wolves in online gaming. Here is the statistic for a video game that should illustrate the idea that lone wolves are mostly IN types:  

In Japan, a phenomenon called hikikomori has become famous. Thousand of adolescents withdraw in their own homes and become modern-day hermits. Social isolation and online addiction are two common traits. These young people are often compared to autistic people (to whom they are related in their neurotribe). What makes those young people become recluse? It seems an enigma to science, but it isn’t that hard to guess - ever-increasing pressure to high achievement, starting in preschool. 

Often hikikomori start out as school refusers. Hunter-gatherer types do not take kindly to coercive education, it kills their intrinsic motivation to learn. Tragically the once so innovative Japan has managed to kill off its creative potential with as school system that was meant to produce more and more creative minds. All it produces now are duty- performers. Hunter-gatherers minds can’t blossom under such circumstances. They have highly sensitive minds with a higher stress response than farmer minds. Stress is toxic to such minds and kills all the inherent creativity. Japan, you have got to change your attitude towards education in order to become an innovative country again! 

Lone wolves are not meant to live alone evolutionary speaking as they can’t reproduce. They are genetically programmed to find a pack where they belong, their own tribe. Online is where they find it nowadays.