Everyone’s familiar with internet trends related to wellness, from the aesthetic green-juice craze to the now cringe-worthy phrase “winter arc.” While some have merits and push people to actually adopt healthy habits and become their best selves, in reality, the sensationalism associated with most of these online trends often renders them unhealthy or a waste of time. One of these particular trends is the phrase “moving in silence,” or the idea of not telling a soul what your goals are and then surprising everyone with the results. To many, this mythos of self-improvement is highly attractive; everyone likes the idea of keeping it all in on an intense self-improvement journey, fueled by the prospect of shocking everyone with a dramatic rebrand. While there certainly are benefits to keeping your goals to yourself and avoiding oversharing, from a social standpoint, the fundamental attitude surrounding “moving in silence” could carry some unwelcome side effects.
The online sphere Upworthy defines this trend as the practice of keeping your plans to yourself until their execution or success, rather than taking to social media and broadcasting every big idea or project that runs through your head. This habit is an objectively healthy response to the chronic oversharing and performative attitudes constantly cropping up online.
As Medium puts it, even when someone is trying not to give in to the culture of publicizing their lives, they remain there, publicizing the fact that they aren’t publicizing their lives. Initially, it all seems like a good thing. Wouldn’t it be great to end inauthentic posting on social media? Most can agree that the overall sentiment of moving in silence in the online world is beneficial, but what about doing so in everyday life? Does refusing to discuss personal aspirations with friends actually help anyone to better accomplish their goals, or does it just push them further away from connection or a potential support system?
Here lies the issue with the idea of moving in silence. A trend emerging from the internet, it works very well in an online setting, but when conscientiously applied to real life, it has the capacity to damage relationships. The idea is to discourage you from hyping up your next move in conversations so much that you psyche yourself out of actually getting anything done; you know it won’t live up to these expectations now that you’ve discussed it with others. Avoiding that tendency is a good thing, and ultimately, everyone still has plenty to discuss with others aside from their current goals.
However, the problem is that moving in silence online isn’t really associated with simply not talking too much about your plans, it’s depicted alongside a hard-core winter arc where you protect your peace, promising to return to your social life once you’ve presumably achieved whatever goal you sought out to pursue. Are the people who make these posts and videos actually going to such lengths to reach their aspirations? Probably not. Most people familiar with the nature of the internet understand the reality behind these extreme posts deep down, but content like this still pervades the online landscape with sentiments that encourage this kind of intense isolation for the sake of personal achievement. A healthy connection with others should be a key part of everyone’s ambitions, not something to cut out to expedite their progress.
Sure, there isn’t necessarily a risk of someone moving into solitary confinement just to get in shape or get better grades, but the attitudes that these online motivational trends keep touting aren’t good for anyone to surround themselves with regardless of how seriously the average person might engage with them. Moving in silence isn’t the only problem. Posts about not owing anyone anything and various self-centered theories fill social media pages, and when people scroll and immerse themselves in these ideas, the content subconsciously influences their psyches as these mentalities that condemn community and meaningful connection endlessly flood their screens.
Simply put, when applied to online spaces as a means of discouraging inauthentic posting, moving in silence is great. It works the same in offline settings too, when it again focuses on maintaining transparency when it comes to individual goals. Ultimately, distancing the concept from the current hard-core, isolationist motivational trends will lead to the best results and preserve the healthy community and connections that are rewarding.