Tech and the Shy

It’s been said that our society favors extraverts in almost all aspects. If that statement is true, has technology leveled the playing field?

Experiencing my formative years in a time where the world was becoming rapidly saturated with technology, I have seen ideas about technology dramatically shift. In my middle-school years, I often toyed around on our family computer, exploring the possibilities of the Internet and sharing content on the world wide web by creating websites. It may seem difficult to believe that not so long ago, using the Internet to share information and content was exclusively relegated to nerds and geeks.

In 1997, the amount of effort and knowledge required to create any kind of website was enough to make it a pastime only of those social pariahs with enough free time on their hands to learn HTML. This universe was far from the current one, where it takes only moments and next to no effort to create a Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter account, which enables you to instantly share whatever you like about yourself with anyone who cares to read it. The geeks stuck in garages picking apart and putting back together technological implements in the '80s are now the driving forces behind what gadgets can improve your status and can buy and sell you a hundred times over.

The wealth of technology now available has also taken the sting out of shyness. Once, if you found it difficult to converse with others in person, you were pretty much out of luck. Now numerous avenues can be taken to approach social situations without worrying about stuttering and sweaty palms. Even finding romance online has changed gears. Once the respite of only the most socially incapable among us, the volume and variety of potential mates one can now meet online is only matched by the amount of people one can meet face to face. I can name several normal, socially well-adjusted people who are or have been in successful relationships that blossomed online. I can name even more friendships that flourished on the web. We use technology to develop relationships even with people we initially meet face to face. Many of our long-distance friendships and new relationships are conducted largely through texts and online communications even with people we see nearly every day. Technology is capable of creating relationships that might have had little potential for existence in the first place and accelerating others by increasing the ease of contact.

With these things in mind, maybe it’s time to reevaluate what types of personalities society really favors.