One of the surprise findings was that Israel was the only country to have a fall in the levels of shyness, all other Western nations had significant rises. Before we actually discuss these implications it is worth noting that these surveys aren't 100% accurate. Different types of people often tend to over or under rate certain traits but with a large enough sample this becomes immaterial if large enough trends are found to be apparent. For these surveys it seems that this was the case.

The researchers claim that it is technology that has resulted in the increase of shyness. How could scientists justify such a luddite stand? They claim that impersonal contact through e-mail, phone and fax have reduced the amount by which people have had to go through day-to-day face on contact with others. This can, they claim, result in exacerbated shyness, especially in those who are already tend to be shy and so stay closeted away whenever possible, replacing "real" contact with proxied contacts through technology.

These explanations are all very plausible and it is true in some cases that people can become more reclusive but on the other hand the increase of contact with humans face-to-face or otherwise has surely increased through the mobile phone, among other things. So the contact is different, but still there. Now a certain amount of shyness can't be a bad thing but it can't be allowed to go too far or society will become extremely dull, to say the least.

Other researchers have hit back at the results saying that many shy people have found a new out-going nature on-line and that in fact shyness is reduced by technology. This is both true and false. While shedding their shyness online people might become even more shy offline, having become unused to the realities of face-to-face interaction. Online the worst someone could do is mail bomb you, nothing too deadly. But offline someone could hit you or worse, its TOO real for some regular heavy Net users.

So is shyness going to finish us all off as technology continues advancing onwards? I very much doubt it, anyone who wants to really succeed in business has to interact face-to-face to gain trust and understanding, the same goes for relationships. If one took an evolutionary viewpoint one might theorise that those people too shy to socialise would have difficulty finding a mate and so wouldn't pass on their shy attributes to future generations and so shyness might be eventually bred out. Note that this assumes that shyness comes from nature rather that nurture which is a highly contested subject.

Where does all this leave you and me? I'm not entirely sure but if you have trouble getting out and meeting people, make the effort or you'll become another statistic!

© 1997 j-dom media. contact us.

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by Jason P. Kitcat [e-mail him]