I believe we should reduce the time we spend being evaluated by others

Recently, I came across the term
attention detox
.

It seems to refer to the act of distancing oneself from the evaluations and gazes of others on social media.

Honestly, I have always felt that the word
detox sounds suspicious.

I am skeptical of the trend of calling everything a detox,
divorced from its medical meaning.

However, while reading that article, I thought about something.

Words aside,
isn't the phenomenon itself
truly happening?

I run a music school.

A young female student who recently joined said,
"I realized that most of my time outside of work is being stolen by social media."

And,

"I want to have a healthy hobby,"

she said, which is why she started playing the guitar.

I also hear similar stories from other students.
They want to avoid using LINE and social media as much as possible.

Why?

To summarize, they say,
“Because even though we are forced to compete at school,
we feel like we are being forced to compete on social media as well.”

That is what they say.

That makes perfect sense.

At school, there are grades.
There are club achievements.
There are entrance exams.
There is job hunting.

And then social media is added to that.

Follower counts.
Like counts.
View counts.
Appearance.
Social circles.
Travel destinations.
Hobbies.
Possessions.

Everything is quantified
and becomes a target for comparison.

What used to be comparisons with classmates
has now become comparisons with the entire world.

Moreover, the targets of comparison areinfluencers who have
countless professionals behind them
handling video editing and marketing strategies.

It would be strange not to feel exhausted.
They are under the illusion that the targets of comparison are just individuals.
That is clearly not the case.

SNS promoted the idea of
a world where everyone can be a creator
.

However, in reality, for most people, it was
a place for viewing rather than a place for creating.

Most people just end up watching.

Even if they try to become creators,
most people just get buried.

You make a video.
You post it.
It doesn't get views.
There is no reaction.
You make another one.
It doesn't get views.

It's just a cycle of that.

Of course, your editing skills or writing ability might be improving.

But all the person sees are the numbers.

As a result, it feels like
only failure experiences are piling up
.

I think this is a very
peculiar environment for creative work.

It's different with the guitar.

You can play better than yesterday.
You can play a whole song.
Your fingers move better.
Even without being evaluated by others,
you can confirm your own growth.

However, on SNS, in many cases,
the very scale of growth becomes evaluation by others.

I think this is the reason people are moving away from SNS.

Humans cannot live on evaluation by others alone.

Of course, self-evaluation alone isn't enough either.

There is evaluation in work.
There is evaluation in society.
However, the problem is the amount.

Modern people spend too much time being evaluated.

We are evaluated at school.
We are evaluated at work.
We are evaluated on social media.
We are even evaluated for our hobbies.

It is as if we are being graded by someone around the clock.

As a result,
time spent "not being evaluated"
has become a luxury.

Looking at the ocean.
Taking a walk.
Reading a book.
Playing an instrument.
Traveling.

What these activities have in common is that
no one is assigning them a score.

I don't think the reason some young people today are trying to
distance themselves from social media
is because they dislike social media itself.

They are tired of being evaluated.
And I think that is an extremely natural reaction.

Social media is, in fact, a convenient tool.

However, it isa service that is ultimately sustained
by an advertising model.

It captures people's attention and sells it to advertisers.

Because of that structure, it is optimized
to steal the user's time.

That is precisely why we need to consciously keep our distance.

Personally,
I don't like the word "detox."

But I sympathize with the idea.
What modern people need is not detoxification.
It is to reduce the time spent being evaluated by others.

Time not being evaluated.
Time not being watched by anyone.
Time that doesn't turn into any kind of metric.

Isn't it that kind of time
that keeps humans healthy?

There is no need to compare it to anything.
Life is already beautiful just as it is.