The other completely normal expectation is that you will limit general chit chat, unless you are at unusually slacky workplace.
I had a manager once go thorough one of my slack conversations and go line by line with how I could rephrase things with softer corporate jargon.
There's books on leadership, books like crucial conversations, books on managing up. The industry is obsessed with staff engineers now and there's on that and the differentiator in that role is getting people to do things.
If you really don't deal with that, let me know where I can send a resume I'd love to work with normal people.
That may well be true for some extroverted people, yes; it is 100% absolutely not true for "all people". You force me to interact with people I haven't chosen and there's a reasonably high probability that I'll subsequently choose to never interact with you again.[0]
> People interacting with different people are less afraid of the world, more trusting etc.
My childhood was largely interaction with people I didn't choose[1] and, nope, I am absolutely not "more trusting" as a result.
> Clustering into echochambers is bad for society as a whole.
Citation needed for that one.
[0] There is a slim chance that the people I haven't chosen to interact with turn out to be reasonable decent people who I don't annoy and, more importantly, don't annoy me.
[1] A bunch of enforced house moves and a paucity of decent locals at each new house/school.
It's true for some of us introverted people as well, especially given that without some "reason" to get together, some of us might never interact with another person ever.
Sure, it's very easy to just "not feel like it" and stay home alone for a week at a time. But I've found that this is usually a reaction to being forced into some situation I don't particularly enjoy, like being compressed like a sardine twice a day on my way to a noisy office where I can't get anything done.
Working from home has actually made me much more social. I'm not drained and annoyed with people at the end of the workday, so I have energy to attend social activities. And, paradoxically, I'm even somewhat closer to people at work: now that I don't have to hear them all day long, I'm much more open to actually interacting with them when I do see them.
Current reality? Of course its more on the (social)media level. Significant proportions of the society in many countries seem to be living in alternate realities.
Real life echo chambers reinforce that as well if you only interact with people with similar lifestyles and worldviews.
> That may well be true for some extroverted people, yes
I would certainly see that’s the case for the overwhelming majority people (certainly not for everyone, though)
I'm not sure that's a truism. But we'll have to agree to disagree here.
Certainly the reverse (anti-echo chambers?) isn't true (which casts doubt on the original statement, for me): cf current US Republicans politicians who constantly interact with people that have different lifestyles and worldviews[0] without it having the slightest effect on their own worldview.
See also: anti-vaxxers, flat earthers, and, extreme[1] religious people; all of whom cannot fail to mix with people of opposing views nearly every day without it changing their minds.
[0] As a small example, they mingle, have lunch, holiday, serve on committees with, etc., their Democrat colleagues all the time and yet not a shred of sanity rubs off on them.
[1] The more culty end of the spectrum; you know the ones.