Psychology Today has an interesting story up on the relationship between shyness and society:
In this cultural climate, we lose patience quickly because we’ve grown accustomed to things happening faster and faster. We lose tolerance for those who need time to warm up. Those who are not quick and intense get passed by. The shy are bellwethers of this change: They are the first to feel its effects. And so it’s not surprising that hyperculture is actually exacerbating shyness, in both incidence and degree.
(via Nathalie)
This “hyperculture” thing may actually be happening — I wouldn’t know, since I’m a fucking hermit. But in my experience things like e-mail and instant messaging have slowed down rather than sped up social interactions, at least insofar as they have supplanted the phone call as the primary means of direct, non-F2F communication. E-mail and IM are a boon for the shy person, since the text medium allows you to consider your words and shape the image you wish to project. As a shy person, I’ve found it far less painful to connect to people now than before I discovered the Internet.
In my actual F2F contacts with people, I haven’t personally experienced any particular difference in the style of interaction compared to ten years ago. I wonder where they came up with this notion. I’m not necessarily disputing it, but it sounds like the kind of thing one would come up with after reading a few issues of Wired.