Kento Furuichi × Mihoko Nishii: Part 1 "Is Anxiety the Default? Reflections on Youth in the Age of Connectivity"

Where are "young people" who have achieved social status headed?

Nishi: Mr. Furuichi, I know you have a particular awareness of the challenges surrounding work. So this time, I'd like to hear your thoughts on new ways of connecting, new ways of working, and that sort of thing.

Furuichi: I'd be happy to.

Nishii: Since it's the New Year, let's start with a current topic. Our company identified the 2014 consumption keyword as "A Future That's Starting to Move." With Abenomics, the Tokyo Olympics decision, and various other factors, the outlook has become more positive, right? What kind of year do you think it will be for the younger generation, centered around those in their 20s?

Furuichi: Abenomics is often discussed in terms of stock prices, but how many young people actually have enough savings to buy stocks? So, realistically, I don't think they're feeling that much of an economic boom. I doubt the consumption mindset of the younger generation will suddenly change. Personally, I'm more interested in what will happen to those people who, even around age 30, still haven't shed their youthful mindset and don't feel the need to.

Nishii: I see. In our research too, we often observe that women, whether in their 20s, 30s, or 40s, keep referring to themselves as "○○ girls" or "○○-jo" – it really feels like both gender and age are becoming less defined.

Furuichi: Major societal events that divide generations, like before and after a war, definitely create different mindsets. Things probably changed before and after the high-growth era too. But when you ask if there's really such a huge difference in values between today's 20- and 30-somethings who spent their youth after the bubble burst, I honestly don't think there is.

Nishii: Now that the meaning of dividing by generation has faded, it's perplexing to think about what makes the clearest distinction. With variables like gender, class, and region, defining youth has become difficult.

Furuichi: We're no longer in an era where we can naively say "100 million middle-class people." On the other hand, I think there are now a lot more people who are "young people" in quotes – those who want to stay young, or feel they have to. In other words, people who can't quite become adults in the traditional sense. In that context, the "young people" category still makes sense.

Nishii: That's true. Their position within the family has changed too. For example, in the past, a man in his late twenties might have been the "head of the household" or "father" owning the family car. Now, the family car might belong to the child within the household. Staying childlike longer definitely changes consumption patterns.

Furuichi: But as people age, their income and careers change. Personally, I'm interested in the trends among these "young people" in their late twenties and early thirties who are starting to have a bit of money and gain some social status.

Does everyone lack things they want? Reason-based consumption becomes a trend

Furuichi: Actually, lately I've been eating nothing but Seven-Eleven salad chicken every day. When you're only looking for things that help you lose weight and seem healthy, salad chicken is basically the only thing left to buy. Whether I go to a convenience store or a supermarket, lately I'm basically just buying and eating salad chicken-type things.

Nishii: Nothing to buy, huh. For the past five years or so, young people have been labeled as "reluctant consumers," but in your book, The Happy Young People of the Country of Despair (Kodansha, 2011), you wrote that it's not that they aren't buying things, but rather that what they are buying isn't visible, or that the act of buying itself isn't visible. I thought, "Exactly!"

Furuichi: Exactly. I don't particularly crave salad chicken either. I have this ideal, like wanting to lose weight, and I buy it because it fulfills that need. When I asked novelist Ryo Asai what he'd bought recently, he said he'd paid for renovations at his parents' house, but hadn't bought anything for himself at all.

Nishii: A lifeline? (laughs) But that's exactly it. I'm sure for most people, it's less about wanting things and more about wanting to do certain things first. The master-servant relationship is starting to flip.

Furuichi: Also, lately, when people get together to eat, they give it a simple name, right? Like "Meat Meetup."

Nishii: Girls do that too. Like "Let's Go Eat Takoyaki Meetup" or "Let's Go Drink Whiskey Meetup." We see tying things to a reason as one of our consumption trends.

Furuichi: That's exactly community-based content. For example, when you want to share with friends on Facebook that you bought something or went out for a meal, you need a reason, an explanatory phrase, right? Just saying "I bought it" doesn't convey anything to anyone, so it's meaningless.

Nishii: At its core, what really matters is that "connection" is what determines people's happiness today.

Making society more interesting through new ways of connecting

Furuichi: This idea of doing things not just for yourself but for everyone else—I feel it applies not only to consumption but also to things like marriage. Personally, when I thought about when I might get married, I figured it'd probably be around the time all the friends I hang out with now get married. Getting married and raising kids at the same time sounds really fun, but if I were the only one to get married first, it would throw off everyone's rhythm. It's been said for a long time now: it's not about "ownership," it's about "sharing." It's like living together in the same village and willingly contributing to the village's communal fund.

Nishii: Amid all this talk of cost-performance, lately I personally feel values are shifting more toward time than money. The value of that time is probably what everyone most wants to share right now. "Sharing" can have quite a few different connotations, but where is Furuichi-san's concept of "sharing" directed?

Furuichi: For example, I think the most basic pleasure for humans is talking with friends about things within their community. You could call it a neighborhood gossip session, but the idea that gossiping about people you know is the most fun is pretty universal across time and place. Nowadays, you can do that easily on LINE or similar apps, and the problem for our consumer society is that it's hard to find entertainment that can compete with that. So, "sharing" itself is the goal; consumption is just the means to support it. Going on a trip somewhere, eating out – all of that is just material for that purpose.

Nishii: It's that feeling of spending money on things that just happened to be there, as a byproduct of sharing time together. Given that, I think how young people connect has changed significantly even just in the last two or three years. What about you, Furuichi-san? What do you think about new ways of connecting, or ideal ways of connecting?

Furuichi: I run a company with friends, and what I really like about it is that it's a base where we actually produce things to sustain ourselves. No matter how much people talk about connections or communities these days, most are still building them while getting paid by a company, right? So while I feel fortunate, I also strongly sense that owning the means of production itself is becoming a major aspiration for many young people. Take the band SEKAI NO OWARI, for example. The four members originally lived together in a shared house, which they turned into a live house where they performed. It wasn't just about being connected; it was a production base where they created and shared their work. If more of this kind of thing happens, I think society will become much more interesting.

Nishii: So, does that mean the lines between working and living are getting closer?

Furuichi: We could certainly have more policies to bring them closer together. For instance, the term "starting a business" somehow feels like you have to aim to become a Daifu & Co., Ltd., but I think we could have more "small-scale commerce" types of ventures. In reality, pre-war Japan was a nation of self-employed workers and farmers, so it's not that unrealistic. In other words, it shows how much we're still dominated by the mindset of the industrial society era that continued after the war.

Nishii: Slowly, a paradigm shift has occurred, ushering in an era of material abundance. While people say things like "it's not about things, it's about experiences," or even "it's about people," that mindset still runs deep.

Furuichi: We're bound by the image of the previous era's stable society, where manufacturing and construction boomed and many large corporations emerged. Stepping outside that feels like unhappiness. I think if that mindset alone changed, the standard for happiness would shift, and younger people would find life easier.

Living with anxiety as the default

Nishii: That said, I feel changing that mindset isn't so easy, especially considering the systems involved. So, what can young people do to overcome that anxiety in their own lives?

Furuichi: Right now, the only thing that can really alleviate anxiety is probably having friends. In the past, you had family, community, or company—various things. But now, those don't feel like places you can entrust your whole life to anymore. But friends are actually fragile too, right? So ultimately, anxiety never really goes away. Actually, it might be better if more people could live with anxiety as the default state.

Nishii: I see. A new way of dealing with anxiety, then?

Furuichi: Society stabilizing is simply not going to happen from here on out. If that's the case, I think we just have to accept that anxiety is the norm and live with it.

Nishii: People often ask, "Is there hope?" While the answer might be "there is no answer," finding ways to discover hope seems to be the key point.

Furuichi: I don't necessarily think having hope is always good. Because once you have hope, you get tossed about by the gap between that and your present reality, right? What I especially think is unnecessary is "hope" spoken in borrowed words. If you talk about "hope" using the limited vocabulary you have at that moment, or within your narrow worldview, I think it actually ends up limiting your own potential. It's paradoxical, but talking about "hope" can actually take away real hope.

※The second part of this conversation will be updated on Wednesday, January 22.
　

【Wakamon Profile】
Dentsu Inc. Youth Research Department (commonly known as Wakamon) is a planning team that engages with the real lives and mindsets of young people, primarily high school and university students. We explore hints to brighten and invigorate the near future, starting from their "now." By anticipating the future through their insights, we realize new businesses that foster better relationships between young people and society. Currently, 14 project members are based across our Tokyo headquarters, Kansai branch, and Chubu branch. We also share updates on the Wakamon Facebook page ( https://www.facebook.com/wakamon.dentsu ).