Urbanization, the Corporate Culture and Introversion

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Does anyone else think that urbanization has created a culture where extroverts thrive and introverts are seen as weird or needing help? Basically for most of history people lived in small communities where they knew pretty much the same people for their whole lives. They did not need to be hyper social or impress people with their "dynamic personality." Urbanization and the corporate culture changed all of that. People need to sell themselves in job interviews with people that they have never met. Everyone is trying to rise the corporate/social ladder and that requires someone to be able to be able to read others, impress people with their wit, make casual business relationships and handle all of the stress and excitement that goes with it.

The world that most people lived in before urbanization was far different because most people were farmers. The world was quieter, you knew fewer people, and being content with sameness, familiarity, and calmness would have served you well. Someone who is now considered to have a "disorder" because they keep to themselves was once considered stoic, hardworking, and loyal. Especially during the winter months you were stuck inside with only your family and had to basically live in your imagination to keep yourself entertained for those months. Having an intense interest and an enjoyment of solitude would have been a huge advantage. I'd imagine that an extrovert would lose it a bit having so few people to talk with and so little to do. Do you think these traits are no longer valued as much (at least here in the USA) and could be marginalizing introverts? Any relationship between this and aspergers or autism. Has the cultural/technological shift made us now more obsolete?

It almost seems like the urban, corporate, loud, fast paced world is almost a return to hunter gatherer, pre agriculture society. It is more about working as a team, needing excitement, etc rather than the slow, steady, calm, way of life that came about as a result of agriculture. But that is really a completely different discussion...

My extrovert father can't stand that I am an introvert. He is convinced that introverts are automatically miserable, because he would be miserable without a lot of social interactions. So, he climbs the walls thinking that I am surely miserable because I am an introvert and live alone. No matter how many times I have told him that I prefer being alone, I can't convince him that I am fine with being alone, so he keeps getting on my case to get out more and be with people. I am in my 50s and he is in his 80s, and I still have to put up with this!

The impression I get from my father, and from others as well, is that they see introversion as always being a kind of mental illness. I do grant that in some cases, a person has been known to be both mentally ill, and an introvert, but it is not always a comorbid situation. Most introverts are not mentally ill. If anyone knows how to make an extrovert understand and accept that there is nothing automatically wrong with being an introvert, please let me know.

No. Apparently no one talks to each other or knows their neighbours any more. Most people are playing with phones or have headphones in. Hours are spent in front of computers and tv sets. Communications are more often through text, e-mail or IM.

I thought society is becoming less social.

Jason

Could be. Is this a reference to a previous post? It think there is less direct interaction than there was 50 or 60 years ago, but compared to most of history it seems like we are required to be more extroverted in modern society. Just brainstorming ideas anyway...

Well I walked into a library & asked for a book on "Introverts" or "Introversion" & they searched the data base & said they're is none. Don't think the librarian even knew what the words meant.

& I don't think allot of people even know what a Introvert is.

I agree that great social transformations have occurred with urbanization, but living in a small town favours people who are super social as well, though in a different way. You may and up knowing a smaller number of people more intimately, but that probably has a centrifuge effect of dividing the population into groups according to how magnetic their personalities are, how well they can maintain how many relationships etc.

The difference is that living in a small town would have a similar boxed-in effect to going to a high school . . . you can't rely on the diversity, indirect communication that borders on anonymity, and parallel interconnectnesses of the city to find a niche in the same way. So for example a person obsessed with pokemon can find a troupe of obsessive pokemon addicts to hang out with in the city, while in a town you'd probably have to integrate yourself into your surroundings and be more like everyone else in order to do well socially. Again, like a highschool.

Anyways, if you didn't like highschool, you probably wouldn't like a small town. There's alot more repression, gossip, accountability for actions, awareness of pasts, drama, and hyper-socialization resulting from boredom in a small town. In a city the ability to be social may have the effect of stratifying success in a more exaggerated way than in a highschool or a small town, but the magnified proportions of the structure give an individual more space to find his niche within it.

Actually microcosmic enclaves within cities generated around people sharing commonalities within the greater population, eg. arts communities, professional communities, LGBT communities, gamer communities, can have the same characteristics that a small town might. Except for the essential difference that it is one domain amongst many in a city, and you don't have the same small town accountability. You can find new groups of friends, develop new interests, disappear in a city. So I guess that cities can be more favourable to the anti-social in this way, though at the same time having an ability to choose domains to become involved with and disappearing from others can be destructive and limit potential. My experience is that a cumulative effect can be created by the parallel worlds within a city existence . . . for example, having a difficulty making friends within 3/4 domains feels much worse than it only being in one of them. But feeling welcome in any of four places is super-validating and lovely.

It's possible to get into a city pattern, such as that of myself, of making alot of circumstantial, shallower friends from different interest areas that don't overlap . . . when you're stuck with a small roster of people, and have to make adjustments and overcome stuff to become friends with them, the friendships tend to be deeper, stronger etc. But the necessity of doing this isn't so strong in a city, so it can be easier not to. This is something I'm working on. I do think cities form fairly inhuman social monoliths that are difficult to navigate and favour the hyper-social. But I think other existences that are more alternative and personalized end up being the more meaningful and satisfying ones, where they are possible to find.

So it could actually be the complete opposite of what I thought? Introverts are actually becoming more common or can thrive because of the changes in the modern world?

I find it hard to work as an introvert. Certain jobs maybe less socially demanding but I live in a small city with a high cost of living and the ability to work is pretty much above all else. No money = boring to friends = nothing to do, etc etc. Even for an introvert it's difficult. It's not that they're that shallow either, it's just I can't afford to keep up with the latest movie or go to bars and such. Not that I'd wanna do either anyway, but not many friends wanna hang out in the library lol. Introversion by most is frowned upon until they need us for something.

Well, I wouldn't call one situation better or worse for introverted people, but they are very different. I definitely think that since everyone can create their own version of a city for themselves, introverted people can thrive in cities. Since you have to go through all the work of assembling this for yourself, this could be harder for an introverted person, but they might also gravitate towards something they don't mind naturally. In a city you can decide exactly what you care about, investing yourself in what you do and being all blase and apathetic to what you don't.

At some point, whether you live in a town or in a city, you have to make, develop, and maintain the friendships you want to keep. The realm of possibilities is smaller in a town than in a city, so the experiences are definitely completely different. In a city, this probably involves more being/finding yourself, while in a small town you'd do this by adapting to others/ finding your place. I think it involves a bit more effort in a city, but that what an introverted person can gain from it is ultimately worth it.

Socially adept people seem do better than introverted people at everything though, no fairness there. Eg., employment, a prerequisite to city life. And making friends, and finding their niche. But the value of friendships are no greater for a person who makes more of them, so if you can make a few good ones I think you're set, like whatever works. I'm biased against cities because mine has been awesome to me.


As a trend . . . have you heard of the bystander effect? I think introverted people can become incredibly isolated in a city, just like people with vices can become incredibly destructive. I hope this wouldn't occur in small towns where people are more aware of others and their realities. It probably still does, but this most certainly happens in cities. If Introverted people can do well in a city, it's probably because they've overcome their difficulties in enough contexts to develop a livelihood. But generally speaking, cities and settings within cities aren't friendly to people who are introverted/anti-social.

The term is "Asocial".

"Anti social" refers to violent behavior, "asocial" refers to disliking socialisation or general introversion.

Anyway, yeah, generally it sucks to be introverted in the USA since the USA is culturally extroverted, different countries have different rates, some countries have majority introverts for example.

I think anti-social means both things. The wikipedia definition has the one you mentioned then adds: "In the USA the term antisocial is also used to describe those perceived to be excessively introverted [4]"

In the sense I meant it in, I was using words interchangeably because I think they all as a group of relations to social environments create the isolating effect I notice. People tend to perceive people who are introverted as anti-social, because they don't foster friendships on reflex and chatter incessantly to make people feel comfortable. People think of people as being anti-social for not using eye contact. And this has a different meaning in a city than in a small town too, but I think I said what I meant . . . less from the perspective of an introverted person and more from the perspective of why they'd have a harder or easier time in a city.

I tend to use words in strings attached by slashes if I mean something between their definitions, mean both simultaneously, or both interchangeably. Not to say that the words are interchangeable, but that I mean both of them. It strikes me as more precise, because if I'm searching for a word it probably means that none of the words I could use are quite right. But it's done regularly by other people too, like when people say LGBTQ etc. they're referring to all of them at once or each independently. I was never shown the appropriate use of asocial until now though, so I'll probably start using it from now onward.

Maybe so, but its gonna be a pretty short lived thing. I doubt this type of society we live in will last a century.

I personally think people are more atomized and less social as a result of corporate culture. Whatever friends people do make,, its a lot more superficial than it probably was in the older societies where people knew a small group of people that they stayed close to their whole lives. There's no loyalty in the current system were in. People hop around all over the place, divorce rights are high, families get split up, etc.

I don't think anything is obsolete either. I really don't see civilization existing in its current past another 100 years. We should learn the old, "obsolete", "outdated" skills, because we may need them for survival in the future.

There are hardly any jobs out there now a days that don't require strong communication skills, teamwork and getting along with other people. There are jobs that are less people oriented than others but all jobs now a days require you to socialize with people unles you're able to work from home or something like that.

I agree with Jtuk and Roger on this. Smaller rural or village communities tend to have a tighter social control than big cities, meaning that greater social skills, getting along with the crowd, is appreciated more, and someone who isolates themselves will be noticed much sooner.

I think another development, the greater cry for freedom in the West as of the 60s, the hippie movement, the struggle for equal rights for women and minorities, and emancipating oneself from the old established authority of both the traditional patriarchal family unit AND the church, has also contributed greatly to the increase of individuality in society.

I do think that in the last decade, there has been a trend, a reaction if you will, that has come to favour more 'social' behaviour over individuality. I think this is due to the heightened state of alarm following the 9/11 attacks, and -perhaps related to this, in light of a revision of the concepts of privacy and security- the proliferation of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. If you don't lay your life out in the open on the internet (within the boundaries of comfort), then you're 'weird' and have something to hide.

Here is a really good article which was published in The Guardian newspaper last Wednesday: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/ ... introverts . Several of the comments talk about autism or Aspergers syndrome.

I find that offensive personally. It puts introversion in a negative sense. My teachers as a child told me to my face frequently "don't trust the quiet one in the class" with a look of disgust. Point being I was the only quiet one in the class. America is passive aggressive towards anyone different and this seems like another case of it to me. Introverts, quiet ones, etc etc. = Columbine Shooters.