I wonder if this is something that needs a closer look. I enjoy spending time at home. I'd rather be at home than pretty much anywhere else. Even before the pandemic I felt this way. The pandemic itself was like a vacation.
Hosting a BBQ dinner party with family and friends it's obviously different than sitting alone browsing Netflix or reddit
Me! That's me! I can barely even get to a mere 24 hours at home without feeling stir-crazy, and more than that you might as well dump ants all over my skin.
But I'm very aware of other people (including family members I know) who are perfectly fine with days spent going nowhere…perhaps rarely even leaving their room. It makes no sense to me, but clearly this issue is very personality-dependent.
It's an important point. To use a nutrition metaphor, there are many new easily-available empty calories at home these days, that weren't previously available. The web. Online gaming. Social media. Streaming.
Yet venturing outside into a social environment delivers a higher minimum level of nutritional value. You see other breathing humans, experience empathy and nature, and move your body.
And critically... exercise being comfortable with being uncomfortable. (Aka, life)
One of the quickest paths to crazy these days is becoming too comfortable in a stable, static, self-reinforcing life. You don't get any feedback that you're drifting pretty far off the median. (I mean, has anyone actually seen the Earth's curvature...?)
Reality has a well-known bias towards reinforcing common sense and reminding you when you're wrong.
...who will cheerfully explain to you that you're unhappy, your hobbies are empty, your choices as wrong, and how much happier you'd be if you'd just value what they value and like what they like and stop being you and start being them.
Cash in your ticket or get some joy out of the game.
My point is that if Alice has what she wants, Bob will not convince her that she doesn't by explaining that she ought to want what Bob wants, which she doesn't have or want. Especially if what Bob wants, and Alice doesn't, is for Alice to be social with Bob.
"You don't live the way I want to" is an observation, not an argument for anyone to change their values or their life.
Which has made me suspicious of introversion as a local maximum that nonetheless leaves one depressed.
Humans don't seem to be built to self-regulate, 24x7, forever. At some point we go off the rails, and other humans (and/or nature) are a good way to kick things back to normal.
(And yeah, I'm pretty sure I'm not a secret extrovert. It can be exhausting being around strangers when I'm down, but sometimes you need to jump off the waterfall and put on that smile that becomes real)
I'm conflicted. I think I get what you're saying, but it doesn't seem to be an argument against bulatb's point, in that both can be true.
It's conceivable for me to want to feel like you don't want social interactions and pursue non-directly-social endeavors (think building something, learning an instrument, whatever) without actually being in need of social interaction.
I think the point isn't that you should self-regulate 24x7, forever, but to do the social thing on your own terms, not on other people's schedule.
Maybe it's a question of quantity. If you only ever do things alone at home and never go out in society, then perhaps there is an issue. It reminds me of alcoholism: wanting to have a drink and saying you're not an alcoholic doesn't mean you're one. It's a question of degree.
I was an introvert, or thought I was, for a long time. A homebody.
But going out, and just being around other people, has legitimately improved my quality of life by an order of magnitude. It's very strange but I'm just... happier. It's like working out. You just do it, and then everything is better.
I don't get anxious anymore. I like myself a lot more. I actually look forward to tomorrow, which used to never happen.
Now that things are back to normal, staying at home too much and not socializing as much as pre-pandemic, feels like wasted potential, and I can't chalk it up to everything being shut down and people not being able to get together.
Now, post-pandemic, I simply stopped caring about what other people "question." That's their problem. Thanks to WFH, I can (and do) stay at home for weeks. I've got everything I need here at home and finally feel no external pressure to go out and do social.
It's also great for costs: I put 3,000 miles on my car in the last 12 months, compared to averaging 10,000 per year prior to the pandemic.
So I can see our relative smaller boost in happiness being outweighed by the utter misery of others.
It is not that it is mildly painful for introverts to socialize when they do not want to, but rather that loneliness can be extremely painful.
As far as depression, drugs, etc. I haven't been under this pressure chronically so I can't speak from personal experience.
That said, I suspect that for introverts in even the most extreme chronic social pressures it would be more feasible for them to escape to some quiet place to recharge, than it would be for an extrovert who has no social connection living in isolation to find sufficient connection to recharge. In theory, it's far more practical to manifest solitude than it is to manifest a party.
Drugs no, although I did tend to numb myself during social interactions with alcohol (not drinking any alcohol anymore, but also have reduced social interactions).
I‘m not saying loneliness cannot be terrible, don’t get me wrong. I guess involuntary anything can be terrible.
Two out of three, yes, as a direct result of a desire not to interact with others.
While loneliness can be extremely painful, so too can anxiety.
They're less likely to be spending their time at home just watching endless TV or Instagram scrolling.
So I think you're right, it doesn't generalize to the larger population at all.