Mask dependency in Japan predated Covid, but it was very much a minority pursuit. But the problem has massively expanded during the pandemic, leading to recent articles about it in the Japanese media.
The Asahi Shimbun (AS) site EduA recently published an interview with psychologist Masami Yamaguchi (MY, pictured below) titled “More children don’t want to show their face. How should children with mask dependence be cared for?” I’ve translated the article since I thought it’d be of interest to people living in countries that have returned to relative sanity. Highlights are all my own. Note that the word “children” in the article encompasses teenagers too.