In an effort to get some idea of why the suicide rate among college students is on the rise, the weekly magazine AERA recently sent a reporter to the Muroran Institute of Technology, where there have been seven student suicides in the last two years.
One university official blamed impersonal technology, such as cellular phones and e-mail, "which makes people's lives less substantial," presumably because their users have less real contact with other people.
This is a common complaint about technology, and one that the AERA reporter seemed to buy, but it ignores a larger, more complex truth about the gap between making a living and the desire for ikigai, which translates as "a fulfilling life." One of the suicides said in a note that he did not "derive any pleasure" from his future. "I do not feel as if I am truly alive," he wrote.