Why should we care about recognizing the differences between introversion and extroversion? Why should we care if there is a difference in valuing between introversion and extroversion? Has not enough attention been placed on this issue already?
We should care because of the social contexts that become imprinted within our identities and our society, which shapes the core to our principles, our beliefs, and our values. We should care because of how these social contexts establish and regulate what is normal and what is aberrant, for it carries into what we say or what we do even if we do not really intend it.
We should care because of the psychiatrists and the psychologists out there who decide to diagnose a person with schizoid personality disorder or even schizophrenia (yes, it has happened!), despite the fact that the person is just introverted and despite the fact that the person is struggling to cope with what it means to live in an extroverted society. We should care because of the guidance counselors who continue to turn a blind eye towards the child who is struggling in the public school system because of developed social issues, who say that it is the introverted child’s fault, who say that the child is inherently doomed to drop out of school and fail in life, who refuse to understand and help the child develop strategies to succeed. We should care because of the people who continue to refuse to understand introverts and instead beseech them with questions on why these introverts cannot be like them and why these introverts should change themselves to how they ought to be. We should care because of how extensively our society promotes and values extroversion within our media, our institutions, and our Western culture.
Experiencing this daily is enough to make an introvert wonder if they really do have a mental disorder, even triggering psychosomatic symptoms of social anxiety and/or social phobia for those who lay closer to the extreme end of introversion. This issue is far from being recognized and far from being addressed in our society.
