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April 08, 2008
How to Annoy an Introvert
I ran across this article (TidBITS Opinion: Instant Messaging for Introverts) by Joe Kissel on TidBITS yesterday. It’s a thoughtful piece on why some of us seem to resist some of the recent trends in communications and collaboration technology. Being quite the introvert myself — I’m about as far over on the I side of the I-E axis on MBTI as you get — I found many of my own feelings about things like IM clients and telephones echoed in the article. I’m perhaps not as adverse to some of these modes of interaction as the author. My fascination with the technology tends to trump my discomfort with its implications. However, I very much understand where he’s coming from.
The thesis of the article is that many of the recent innovations in computer moderated communications could not be better contrived to annoy, bebother and otherwise cause suffering to your garden variety introvert temperament. If so, this is important to consider.
The odds are that at least 25% of your coworkers would fall somewhere on the introvert end of the personality range. My own guess is that many high-tech companies may well have a higher than average weight of introverts. This makes the article of even greater relevance. There’s much more in it than just why instant message programs irritate introverts. There’re some good thoughts on much more general communications issues between introverts and the people with which they work — while trying to hide in their caves.
Filed under Software, Instant Messaging, IM and Personality Type.
Posted by eric at April 8, 2008 08:52 AM