Is MBTI becoming old?

[TomasM]

Over the weekend, I heard an interview* claiming Americans have grown more isolated and less social since the 1950s. It stated tech like TVs, computers, and phones are contributing. The interesting aspect of this is that the sensation of loneliness is also declining and people are more likely to socialize due to obligation either to themselves ("I should get out more,") or to others.

As we, as a society, feel less social and less lonely, our MBTI results (on the whole) are going to shift toward introversion. This does make me feel like MBTI is outdated. The person said we NEED to socialize to stay healthy and for society to work properly (and mentioned how this affects society, politics, community, etc) which makes me wonder if a system of personality categorization could still measure the amount of socializing each person needs to stay balanced within a more introverted society.


*I was in a car. Two quick searches didn't give me the result I wanted, and I can't be bothered to spend more time searching for the link right now.

I really enjoyed reading this. Not because I like the idea of isolation but because the concept was mentally stimulating.

As I reflected on what the interview was saying, it seemed to be incomplete with respect to the words used. What I read was that people have grown more isolated but that the sensation of loneliness is declining. This seems like a contradiction. Loneliness (of or being alone) is literally a form of isolation.

Then I realized that they are likely separating the idea of mental loneliness from other types of loneliness (e.g. emotional, physical, spiritual). The reason there is a health correlation to isolation is because we are experiencing neglect in other aspects of our needs to connect with people. This tells me that if we actually "feel" less lonely, as a whole of society, then our needs are currently being met sufficiently in these other areas (though slightly diminished), while gaining more through the increase in mental activity. Though this may be the case for some people, it will not be true for everyone. High level extroverts and high level sensory people will suffer more because their tolerance for isolation is lower. Similarly, there are limits to the degree of isolation a high level introvert and low level sensory person can tolerate, so those people will also suffer in relation to the overall shift towards isolation. Therefore, the degree of shift towards isolation should be directly related to a degree of suffering by those on the fringe of the dichotomies. We could further extrapolate that a big enough shift (as a percentage) could destabilize society. Covid seemed to measure the impact of isolation through an increase in psychological behaviors (suicide, substance abuse, domestic aggression, etc.), and I don't believe society has yet to fully recover.

My gut feeling is that MBTI could be more valuable, in some ways, if it helps us measure a persons dichotomy tolerance with respect to the degree of societal shift towards isolation. Of course, to the best of my knowledge, MBTI doesn't currently measure tolerance, but there are other ways that that could be used to measure tolerance / neglect within some dichotomy. A good baseline for measuring an individuals needs tolerance would be to measure stress levels. Of course, measuring a persons intuitive needs seems like it would be near impossible, given that we can't seem to accurately define it - other than it's relation to the sensory.

In summary, I do believe MBTI is outdated, not because we are shifting as a society, but because it has not been growing its ability to better measure aspects of the dichotomies. There could be studies out there that just haven't gained mainstream awareness or acceptance [due to cost as it relates to benefit], and if there is, that would mean MBTI isn't necessarily outdated but underutilized.