Why Korean parents lock themselves in ‘Happiness factory’ cells

South Korean parents have voluntarily been spending alone time in cells at the Happiness Factory. The only thing connecting each tiny room to the outside world is a feeding hole in the door, the BBC writes.

No phones or laptops are allowed inside these cells.

Residents may wear blue prison uniforms but they are not inmates; they simply come to this center in South Korea for a “confinement experience”.

Most people here have a child who has fully withdrawn from society, and have come to learn for themselves how it feels to be cut off from the world.

Reclusive young people are referred to as hikikomori, a term coined in Japan in the 1990s to describe severe social withdrawal among adolescents and young adults.

The programme includes three days in a room that replicates a solitary-confinement cell.