Nobuo Masataka, a primate researcher at Kyoto University, has written a book which argues that proliferation of mobile phones has resulted in a population of young people in Japan who behave more like chimpanzees than humans. He calls this group “dearuki-zoku (out and about tribe)” and claims that their reliance on mobile phones and text messaging has caused them to lose the distinction between public and private space, to become more emotional, less able to express their feelings in words, and more likely to lash out in sudden, unprovoked attacks.
“There’s been a dramatic increase in the dearuki-zoku. They don’t eat meals at home with family members and you can clearly see with your own eyes the large increase in young people who hang about on the streets together with the same old friends,” Masataka tells Sapio. “They make places like Shibuya their territory and rarely head even to places like (nearby entertainment and shopping districts) Shinjuku or Harajuku. They get tired going to new places or meeting new people. If they get hungry while they’re strolling around, they simply get food by going into a convenience store, buying something and sitting down outside on the curb to eat it. If not that, then they just hang around for hours in fast food joints.”
The primate specialist says the actions of the dearuki-zoku closely resemble behavior patterns in chimpanzees, which tend to travel in groups, walking around for a long time without going to any specific place, then eating and disposing of their wastes in the same place before bedding down on piles of grass whenever and wherever the inclination takes them.
My tendency is to dismiss this sort of speculation as publicity-seeking behavior, with virtually no relationship to genuine science. And I distrust my own old-fart tendency to see the behavior of young people and other alien cultures as a tolling bell for the doom of civilization. Still, this one has resonance; there’s something going on among those young people who have such a symbiotic relationship with such an intimate and seductive gadget, and it doesn’t feel comfortable or even, as Professor Masataka points out, quite human. I think it may be something we’ll be hearing more about.
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