Carl Jung (1923) “described extroverts as preferring to engage with the outside world of objects, sensory perception, and action. Introverts he described as being more focused on the internal world of reflection, are thoughtful and insightful.”
Many are pondering the source of the increase in introverts over the last couple of years. The effects of isolation on the children or their perceptions of the effects on the children due to the remote schooling that had been implemented during COVID and its impact on academics. Others have blamed politics for the increase in people preferring to isolate themselves from social situations and preferring to work from home.
Let me attempt to remove all the “doom and gloom” from the hidden messages in all of these “concerns” that people are expressing, because chances are these feelings of doom and gloom and the glaring concerns of those people; are simply concerns from the extroverts who need that social interaction to thrive and define themselves. Extroverts needing to glean self worth from moments of socialization.
Lets take education as an example. The assumption is: Children were depressed and failed academically because they were learning from home. Not really. Children who love to learn — are already learning online. They come home and look up knowledge online to simply gain more — learn more — know more. Being “at home” with all the tools and knowing how to use those tools does not have a negative effect on learning. The environment you are in has a negative or positive effect on learning. Children who are in a safe, loving, and nurturing environment will flourish in that environment whether it be home or school. Those who need to escape from tensions at home have found no outlet by being at home and thus are more stressed and unable to progress educationally because other concerns that are present in their environment take precedence over learning. Example: maybe there is no food at home and their breakfast and lunch at school were their only two meals in the day? Many states like NY like Vermont temporarily halted the income requirements in order to qualify for free lunch and provided universal free lunch to all public school students regardless of parental income.
A teacher’s inability to pick up a new skill like online teaching, or lack of desire to learn something new; or not wanting to learn how to be effective with a new skill is also a factor, and probably one of the more vocal “let's return to the building because of the children” groups; when in reality they just want to return to something they already know and are fighting change. Children are being used as scapegoats for adult decisions that adults are not happy with. No child who is bullied by his/her/their peers wants to go back to in person schooling — no research needed.
More people want to work remotely. Not particularly because they are “introverts” or “extroverts”, moreover because of the amount of time and money they save commuting and how they are equally as effective from a distance as they were from the office. Dare I say working from home has improved people’s quality of life. Not made people more “introverted” rather made more time for people to spend their commuting time productively with other activities — activities that may or may not be social.
When an organism fails to adapt to change it ceases to exist. Evolve…
