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Comment by dcsommer | Hacker News Reader

The bias for negativity in headlines and SEO is at play again here. Later on ITA:

> While cognitive development took a hit, kids’ behaviors were assessed as better on average in larger families.

Note that overall life success can depend on both of these factors. And in today's isolating times, the cognitive skills may be more replaceable/recoverable than the social/behavioral ones.

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Yes but I think few metrics are as loaded and culturally mediated as "well behaved" for children. For a lot of people this could simply mean quiet and capable of extended occupation alone. It could mean different things for boys and for girls, depending on the expectations of the assessor.

It seems like this is possibly self-assessment by a parent, which has what I hope are obvious issues. But even if you take say a teacher or other third party you run into a lot of the same problems with it.

Ehhh I social skills are overrated. As long as you're able to do effective collaboration and work within a team you dont need to be a social butterfly. The most successful engineers and researchers I know personally; are not particularly social people, obviously they're able to exist in polite company and collaborate etc but socialization is just another tool.

Sounds like a false equivalence. No one is saying you need to be a social butterfly.

> The most successful engineers and researchers I know personally; are not particularly social people

I've seen plenty of capable or at least promising engineers torpedo their development by not being to read the room or adjust their social behavior.

> obviously they're able to exist in polite company and collaborate etc

Ok, so having the skills is considered a baseline? Sounds like they're pretty important then.

Youre right basic social skills are absolutely a baseline but being charming/sociable/a social butterfly and being able to integrate into a team, collaborate, express technical ideas to others and vice versa arent necessarily the same thing. My most effective teachers/mentors/role models throughout my life were often by all accounts kind of awkward sometimes. I think we as a society put lots of emphasis on the former and conflate it with the latter.

>> The most successful engineers and researchers I know personally; are not particularly social people

Could you imagine how successful they'd be if they added those skills?

The happiest and most successful people I know are social butterflies.

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