The Internet is a safe place for socially awkward people. There are no forced social interactions, no planning of meeting with your friends and no running from store employees when they ask "Can I help you?" As a fellow introvert, I love to decompress by reading, watching and scrolling through content online.
The Antisocial Butterfly Instagram page is for those who thrive on being alone, perhaps with only their cat to bother them. Its 2.1 million follower count is a testament to how many of us are out there. So, gather around, fellow antisocial butterflies and scroll through our selection of memes about this clearly superior way of living!
Bored Panda contacted Alexander Danvers, Ph.D., a social psychologist and postdoctoral fellow at the University of Arizona. He researches emotions and social interactions and agreed to lend us his expertise. Alex spoke to us about the importance of in-person socialization and whether commenting under a Reddit post or dueting a TikTok video can substitute social interaction in real life.
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If the memes on this list are any evidence, going outside and socializing is not very popular right now. We here at Bored Panda have covered antisocial memes and jokes several times already in the past few years. We asked Alex Danvers what he thinks about this trend of hating socialization that's so prevalent on the Internet.
"My own take on what people mean when they say that they hate socializing online is that they hate high-effort, put-on-something-nice, 'going out' type of socializing," Danvers replies. "That takes extra effort, and it can feel like a lot at the end of the week."
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In 2018 Danvers' colleague Anne Milek published a study about the link between well-being and the amount of socialization one receives. The more days per hour you spend socializing, the happier you are, they found. "The difference between the happiest and least happy people studied is about four more hours around other people every day," Danvers comments.
"The study I recently published showed that if you’re spending more than 75% of your day alone, you’re much more likely to report feeling lonely. Both these studies relied on making audio recordings of people’s daily lives and listening in on when they were talking to other people. Based on these studies, it seems like you actually do want to spend more time around other people – physically, not just in cyberspace – to be satisfied with your life," Danvers concludes.
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According to that study by Milek and her collaborators, the type of social interaction hardly matters. The important thing is that just being around people makes you happy. Alex says that it might seem slightly counterintuitive, yet it is true.
"You don’t need to be having deep conversations, you don’t need to be having witty banter, you don’t need to be 'out' to get the benefits of being around other people," the researcher explains. "It really is just about being in other people’s company, even if you’re just talking about what frozen pizza to make while you play video games."
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Danvers and his colleagues did make a quite interesting discovery in their 2023 study. "We do find a sort of 'tipping point' of 75% or more of your time alone starts to make you feel lonely. Below that, it doesn’t seem to matter as much. So if you hate socializing but still manage to be around people for more than four hours a day, you’re probably going to be OK, or at least not feel lonely," he says.
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Alex says he himself is not immune to the struggle of going out and socializing. He has some advice for us other couch potatoes – try managing your expectations. "I have to remind myself too, that being around people usually feels better than you expect when you’re just sitting around on the couch at home.
"It can feel like a lot of effort to get out, but it tends to be energizing and mood-boosting once you actually do. So if you can get over the hump of getting out of the house – or getting on the phone and calling a friend to come over to binge-watch something – it’s usually worth it."
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But what about socializing on the Internet, on social media? Doesn't that count? Danvers agrees with the idea that I offer – that people who might never want to go out can be very social online. "My take is that we have a fundamental human need to feel connected socially to other people," he reflects.
"Interacting with other people, whether in person or via text online, is rewarding and engaging. One of the major differences – online socializing can be a lot less cognitively demanding. It’s just easier to post on social media than it is to hold an actual conversation in person."
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"What I think people often don’t appreciate," he goes on, "is how complicated and demanding social interaction really is. When you see a comment that doesn’t resonate with you online, or that seems too complicated to deal with, you can just skim or skip over it."
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Socializing in the real world sometimes demands more confrontation. "In a real social interaction, if someone says something that doesn’t resonate with you or that challenges something you have been thinking about, then you can’t just skip it. Just going blank in a social situation doesn’t work; you need to actually find some way to respond," Alex adds.
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There’s also the element of timing in in-person social interactions. "People respond with different facial expressions, tone of voice, body posture, etc. It also doesn’t stop when you’re not the one talking," Alex observes.
"Conversation involves a lot of back-channeling while the other person is talking, which can really set the tone of the interaction." He gives some examples: doing things like saying "uh-huh" when someone is explaining, or nodding in agreement to a statement.
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In-person communication is harder because you have to get the timing and tone right. You also have to balance different types of verbal and nonverbal communication.
"Compared to real, in-person interaction, the kind of text-only interface of Reddit is really flat and simplified," Danvers tells us. "Just talking to someone in meatspace is a demanding task. I’d think of online socializing as sort of the 'lite' version," he concludes.
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What Alex says next really sticks with me as a chronically online person: "That may be nice to do when you’re feeling tired or burnt out, but it’s also not going to give you the full experience of connecting with another person. To have really satisfying connections, you do need to put in the effort of navigating the more complicated world of in-person interactions."
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