Here’s an interesting modern phenomenon: say you’re at a party, and you don’t know anyone. Do you a) start making the rounds with your hand extended, greeting total strangers, b) check out the buffet selection and make wry comments, or c) start playing with your cell phone so you won’t look pathetic and alone?
A lot of people these days might opt for c), and that says something about our fear of looking socially unconnected. So when exactly did “alone time” become such a burden?
Yeats once grumbled that “the best lack all convention, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” He would have agreed with Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, who has a bone to pick with the extroverts of the world. You know them: they’re like the overly cheerful workers at the beginning of The Lego Movie, reading instruction manuals on how to be vibrant and outgoing, all grinning and nodding their heads to the same overbearing song (Everything Is Awesome!), and eating tacos every Tuesday.
The extroverts, says the author, are the ones who make the biggest noise; but it’s the introverts who actually innovate and create masterpieces and think up brilliant ideas like gravity (Newton was an extreme introvert, as were plenty of other geniuses down through history).
Framing the argument with a look at American history, the author puts the blame squarely on Dale Carnegie. Well, not exactly, but she notes that as America became more urbanized in the late 1800s, people knew each other less; the anonymity of cities led to an emphasis on, well, emphasis: people had to be loud, firm and outgoing in order to stand out from the crowd and make contact with strangers. Sales careers depended on it. Carnegie was one of those salesmen, but his biggest export was attitude: the best seller How to Win Friends and Influence People taught generations how to persuade and get results from others — or, as Marlon Brando once put it, “how to hustle people.” By the 1950s, the American ideal had changed from inner integrity and morality to an outward show of strength, boldness and attractiveness, says Cain. That was what sold things in America, and it’s a formula that still rules today. It’s an archetype known as The Extrovert Ideal, and we can see it in empowerment gurus like Tony Robbins down to the cast members of any reality TV series you can mention. Loud and proud sells; quiet gets left in the corner.
On the other side, the author points out that introverts prefer to stick to their comfort zone because it produces results: they’re better at solving problems and completing tasks on their own and need time to recharge, because too much socializing drains them; they’re not preoccupied with fame, wealth or status; they’re happier reading in a silent corner rather than doing karaoke.
The author points out an interesting fact: many introverts who excel or succeed do so by “pretending” to be extroverted. They train themselves to get by in an extroverted world, as someone like Bill Gates did. They learn how to get their ideas across in a world that values loud pronouncements over quiet “eureka” moments.
Indeed, Quiet develops the argument that solitude is the only way for certain people to bloom. Apple co-creator Steve Wozniak is an example of someone who believes that being and working alone is often the only path to greatness. Then there’s Anders Ericsson, a research psychologist who came up with the “10,000 Hour Rule” (also discussed by Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers). This theory says one needs to devote that many hours to a skill in order to truly master it — and this intense dedication comes about through solitude, not in groups, where what Cain calls “social loafing” let’s people relax their standards and settle for mediocrity.
And — for the Netizen set who firmly believe they can text while surfing while streaming YouTube while writing an article on deadline — Cain cites science: there is no such thing as multitasking. We can only do one thing very well at a time; or we can do several things poorly at once. For those meek at heart individuals who refuse to Instagram while they’re looking up directions to a gig while they’re talking to several people at once, this is reassuring news. It means you’re not a freak for wanting to focus on one thing at a time.
But what a time in human history to break this news. Telling introverts they will inherit the world may sell books, but it doesn’t seem to wash in the real world, where everyone seemingly wants to be in a TV reality show, where everyone wants to be noticed, everyone wants to be on top of everything, 24/7. No wonder she called the book Quiet.
Though it’s tempting and comforting, as an introvert, to believe in Cain’s comfortable dichotomy, I suspect the world is a bit more complicated than that. There are plenty of extroverts capable of interior thought and innovation, just as there are introverts who really, at the end of the day, have nothing to show for all their isolation. Quiet seems to enable the belief that “just being yourself” — even if it means developing no social skills — should be nurtured.
The thing of it is, we introverts will always have to play the extroverts’ game in order to get noticed. You don’t see many extroverts seeking to be more quiet, bookish and self-reflective to gain acceptance. Instead, we have try to fit in, overcoming sometimes crippling shyness, learning to adapt to the corporate norm in order to get our ideas across. Sometimes, it’s enough to make you want to curl up with a good book.