We live in a hyperculture: the internet, email, cell phones, and texting are all speeding up our interactions. It’s not only faster, it’s also more complex, leaving behind people like my mother, who, when asked to push a number on her phone in order to continue the interaction, used to simply hang up. I admit that sometimes I do that, too.
We tend to lose patience when our expectations are not met instantly; we don’t always tolerate people slower than ourselves. Hyperculture is not only faster, it is also communication-intense and constant. Our society is getting louder and more colorful. Even old black and white movies get colorized. I don’t watch anything live on TV anymore; I record everything so I can fast forward through commercials. I tend to scan newspapers or just read the headlines. Always rushing gives our days a feeling of hurrying to get to the next activity, but never feeling caught up.
Even before the pandemic, we were living in an increasingly narrow circle of friends. We would go from our cubicles at work to a commute to our gated communities. Our children came home from school wearing headphones, while we did take-out or microwaved frozen food. There were no hours spent in the kitchen with the children all helping with meal preparation and talking about their days.
What are the consequences of our hyperculture? Alienation! It’s easier to be rude online, easier to mistreat faceless and voiceless people — and the cost is less civility. Who pays the highest price? The people who are naturally shy. There seems to be a shyness gene characterized by excessive self-consciousness, low self-esteem, and anticipation of rejection, but, shyness is also induced by our culture and now especially by our hyperculture.
When we lose patience with slowness, the shy who take time to warm up lose out. When we notice only the loudest, the laid back get short shrift. As we become less polite and more impatient, the shy are the first to be excluded and even badly treated. As our lives increase in complexity, our level of anxiety also rises, and we see a polarization of behavior with both an increase in aggression and a loss of civility.
Shy people are often insecure and worry about how they look, what to say, and how to say it to whom and when. They need more time to warm up, to adjust to new or stressful situations. The number one problem for the shy or insecure person is starting a relationship. At a social gathering, they tend to compare themselves to the most socially active person instead of looking for people like themselves. They wait to be approached and believe anything they say will not …….
Source: https://sdnews.com/shyness-in-our-hyperculture-has-been-exacerbated-by-isolation/