If your mood rises and falls with your likes, you’ve handed strangers the remote.

A number that moves for reasons you cannot see should not be steering how your day feels. Timing, the algorithm, who happened to be awake. None of that is a verdict on you, and yet a quiet post can flatten an entire evening once the count becomes the scoreboard.

Try posting something and leaving it unchecked for a day. Notice how much of the nerves were about the thing you made and how much were about the number beside it. If it is mostly the number, that is worth knowing. The count measures traffic, not you.