A Certain Term I'm Looking For...

[Mobius]

Hello, everyone. First time poster, and...actually, first time reader. I'm a psychology undergrad currently working on a project for a film company, and I'm looking for a good place to share resources with fellow psychologists and students of psychology. Looks like I came to the right place!

I'm interning for WILL Interactive, a film company in Potomac, Maryland who has a copyrighted educational tool called VEILS - Virtual Experience Immersive Learning Simulation. If you're curious, their website is here: http://willinteractive.com/, and they have won several awards in the past decade.  Long story short, I'm writing the script for a piece dealing with a specific kind of depression involving males age 20 - 25, who spend all their time with the internet, television, video games...essentially closing themselves off to the world with various forms of media.

I recall reading a term referring to this specific kind of depression in my Developmental Psych class last semester. It was in the book The Developing Person: Through the Lifespan by Kathleen S. Berger (2008, 7th Edition) under the Early Adulthood section. It mentions it especially being a problem in Japan, where "otaku" circles reinforce each others habits of isolation. Unfortunately, I left my book back home in another state, and don't have the codes necessary to read it online.

If anyone knows what term I'm talking about - or can think of a better, clinical one - it would be much appreciated!



tl;dr = What is the technical term for young males who do not want to leave the house, spending the majority of their time playing video games and surfing the internet?

[SWM]

is this form of depression specific to those criteria? males 20-25, who isolate themselves from the world using entertainment media.

I haven't come across this before. Would i be right in presuming it is not in the DSM?

[Mobius]

It's probably not a clinical term - it could possibly be one the author herself coined. However, it is a growing phenomenon, and if there is already a term being used for it I would rather use that than coin one myself. I want to avoid using the term depression as much as possible, simply because it is so overused and hackneyed in the media.

And as far as I know, it is not in the DSM.

[SWM]

how about dysthymic?

[Mobius]

Possibly...I think it would be helpful if I used something less...clinical, I guess. Otherwise, I feel like I would need to cite a lot of sources or talk to some professionals. I don't so much want this to be a training video about a disorder as I do a training video about a young male who overcomes his fear of the outside world.

Perhaps I should start at the symptom and go backwards...what conditions might cause an otherwise healthy young male to isolate himself from the outside world? Obviously, there's depression, anxiety, social phobias, agoraphobia...anything else? (Short of extreme psychotic conditions) Feel free to throw out some psychoanalytic terms as well.