#extraversion

So profoundly, that even if I usually try to accept the life as it is and follow the idea that everything happens exactly when it should happen, can't help but feel remorse about all of the time I was too shy, too introverted and too passive to go out and actually try them.

It is the reactivity to the fantasy world the books could never have.

It is the freedom of being someone else real life would never allow

It is the variety of actions and consequences computer games would not reach for a long long time

It is a possibility to meet your inner world, project it and rationalize, that only the best therapists could acomplish

It is a means to try to see the world around through the lens of a different person, without all of the social implications of possible mistakes if you do it in real life

It is a gateway to your unrestricted fantasy, but you still have the mechanical railings to not get lost in the wild chaos of said fantasy

It is a good way to train to think quickly on your feet, without the risk of real life error

It is a place when you can loosen yourself and let yourself be a bit more free, a bit more unhinged, become a more real version of yourself through the proxy, and chances are - no one would care

It is a place where you can forgo your introvercy and become a 20 CHA Bard, if only for a moment

It rewards cooperation, while also giving you the chance to achieve great deeds all by yourself

That's a bit more personal, but I find it hard to talk to random people IRL. In a game though? I don't care, I interact through a proxy, and in the process these new random people become familiar and generally safe to be around. So I could socialize and bypass the massive part of my social anxiety

It has lines and veils. You are incentivized to set up straight in advance which topics are fine for you, and which are a hard no

And last, but not least. It is a way to become someone else and be in a different place, escaping the real life that weighs down on your shoulders, but not detaching completely

Yes, it's not always sunshine and rainbows. Yes, you're bound to see people you don't like to spend time with. Yes, you can occasionally stumble on a particular brand of weird you can't tolerate. Yes, not all stories are captivating. Yes, sometimes you don't want to participate in an involuntary aggressive therapy session by some other person. Yes, sometimes you meet the occasional "Whizzard" guy (fucking ew by the way, forcing your fetishes on other people is gross)

And that's where you get to the final rule of TTRPGs. If you don't like it, you can always leave and find a different group. A different story. A different setting. A different rules framework. A different way to play. A different genre entirely (a lot of TTRPG enjoyers also love other board games).

You get to know wildly different people with wildly different worldviews. You learn random tidbits of knowledge here and there. You get your soft dose of social interaction in a safe space (for all the introverts out there. I know you don't necessarily want to be around people, but a human needs it every once in a while). The lucky ones might even get an unexpected close friend or a blooming love.

I wish I could start doing that when I was a teen. I hope I would do that for as long as I live. I insist that even if you don't enjoy roleplaying and games in general, you could at least feel just how impactful this simple act can be for a person.

For all the people fighting the monsters, doing heroic sacrifices, exploring the boundaries of morality and sanity, allowing themselves to be more than they already are.

I salute you.

We might meet in the tavern. We might watch the last breath of a dying star and discuss the fragility of the universe from a speceship deck. We might take a last stand together against the horrors from beyond the stars. We might stop for a moment to watch the sky. We might plot and scheme together or against each other. We might have to say tragic goodbyes to others who we'll never meet. We might prevail and we might fail.

But we will have fun.

By: John Burn-Murdoch

Published: Aug 8, 2025

NEW: Is the internet changing our personalities for the worse?

Conscientiousness and extroversion are down, neuroticism up, with young adults leading the charge.

This is a really consequential shift, and there’s a lot going on here, so let’s get into the weeds 

First up, personality analysis can feel vague, and you might well ask why it even matters?

On the first of those, the finding of distinct personality traits is robust. This field of research has been around for decades and holds up pretty well, even across cultures. 

On the second, studies consistently find personality shapes life outcomes.

In fact, personality traits — esp conscientiousness and neuroticism — are stronger predictors of career success, divorce and mortality than someone’s socio-economic background or cognitive abilities. 

Highly conscientious people (dependable, disciplined, committed) fare best of all. They live the longest, succeed at work, their relationships last.

This makes sense. Life isn’t just about knowing what you should do or having the resources to do it, it’s about following through. 

Conscientiousness is especially critical in the modern world. Life today is full of temptations. From hyper-engaging digital media to online gambling, the ability to ignore it all and put long-term wellbeing ahead of short-term kicks becomes a superpower. 

Generative AI could supercharge this dynamic.

A high-C student might use an LLM as a personal tutor to strengthen their knowledge of a concept; their low-C counterpart might task the same LLM with writing their essay, foregoing knowledge acquisition altogether. 

So, that’s conscientiousness.

At the other end of the spectrum, people high in neuroticism (anxious, often tense, feel emotions very strongly) tend to face more challenges in life.

Relationships break down, work life is difficult, stress can bring health problems. 

That’s what makes this chart so important.

People are changing in ways that decades of research suggests will lead to worse life outcomes, and this is particularly true of today’s teens, twenty- and thirty-somethings.

First up, personality analysis can feel vague, and you might well ask why it even matters?

On the first of those, the finding of distinct personality traits is robust. This field of research has been around for decades and holds up pretty well, even across cultures. 

On the second, studies consistently find personality shapes life outcomes.

In fact, personality traits — esp conscientiousness and neuroticism — are stronger predictors of career success, divorce and mortality than someone’s socio-economic background or cognitive abilities. 

Highly conscientious people (dependable, disciplined, committed) fare best of all. They live the longest, succeed at work, their relationships last.

This makes sense. Life isn’t just about knowing what you should do or having the resources to do it, it’s about following through. 

Conscientiousness is especially critical in the modern world. Life today is full of temptations. From hyper-engaging digital media to online gambling, the ability to ignore it all and put long-term wellbeing ahead of short-term kicks becomes a superpower. 

Generative AI could supercharge this dynamic.

A high-C student might use an LLM as a personal tutor to strengthen their knowledge of a concept; their low-C counterpart might task the same LLM with writing their essay, foregoing knowledge acquisition altogether. 

So, that’s conscientiousness.

At the other end of the spectrum, people high in neuroticism (anxious, often tense, feel emotions very strongly) tend to face more challenges in life.

Relationships break down, work life is difficult, stress can bring health problems. 

That’s what makes this chart so important.

People are changing in ways that decades of research suggests will lead to worse life outcomes, and this is particularly true of today’s teens, twenty- and thirty-somethings.

If the headline terms still feel fuzzy, we can dig into the more detailed traits they’re made up of.

Here are some of the sub-traits inside conscientiousness:

Young people say they increasingly struggle to make plans and follow through on them. They feel distracted, careless.

They also say they feel less outgoing and talkative (true of everyone, but especially young adults). Young people also report feeling less helpful and less trusting, as well as more argumentative.

Again: these are people’s own self-assessments, not others’ descriptions of them.

These detailed traits lead me to point the finger at the digital world.

Ubiquitous and hyper-engaging digital media has led to an explosion in distraction, as well as making it easier than ever to either not make plans in the first place or to abandon them last minute. 

To put it another way: distractions derail our intentions. And we’re now more distracted than ever.

Distraction is toxic to conscientiousness. 

As @kylascan has written, the sheer convenience of the online world makes real-life commitments feel messy and effortful

The in-person world encourages conscientiousness. The digital world gives you an opt-out.

The rise of time spent online and accompanying decline in face-to-face interactions mean less social policing of bad behaviours like “ghosting”. See @_alice_evans here:

If you’re low-C on the internet, you don’t pay the price. Not immediately, at least...

And note the timing of that steep young adult dip in extroversion:

The pandemic years when young people bore the brunt of restrictions on socialising in order to protect others from harm.

Long the most extroverted group in society, young adults are now the most introverted.

But I want to end on a more empowering note:

Unlike parental background and genetic make-up, there is a wealth of evidence that personality is malleable — what has been eroded can be rebuilt. 

Conscientiousness will separate those who just survive from those who thrive in the 21st century. We can each decide which half of that divide we fall on — but ironically that will take some dedication.

Here’s my article in full:

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By: John Burn-Murdoch

Published: Aug 8, 2025

What are the key attributes that shape the length and quality of our careers, relationships and lives more broadly? The socio-economic environment we grow up in certainly has a substantial influence, with parental prosperity acting as a propellant or a key to unlock crucial doors. Cognitive abilities are another obvious one: they enable better decision-making in all aspects of life. But another factor often gets less credit despite being just as important: personality.

In fact, studies consistently find that traits such as conscientiousness (the quality of being dependable and disciplined), emotional stability or agreeableness have a stronger link with professional success, relationship durability and longevity than the links between those outcomes and someone’s intelligence or socio-economic background.

Of all personality types, conscientious people tend to fare best on a number of key measures. They live the longest, have the most career success and are less likely to go through divorce. They even manage to hold down a job during recessions. Intuitively, this makes sense. Life isn’t just about knowing what you should do, or having the resources to do it, it’s about following through. Being motivated and persistent is a huge help.

Some studies suggest the advantage of conscientiousness is growing over time, and it’s easy to imagine why. When contemporary daily life is full of temptations — from always-on mobile internet and the lures of social media and online gambling, to hyper-palatable foods — the ability to ignore it all and put long-term wellbeing ahead of short-term kicks becomes a superpower.

Generative artificial intelligence could supercharge this dynamic. An industrious student who is not deterred by a challenge might use a large language model as a personal tutor to strengthen their knowledge of a concept; their less conscientious counterpart might task the same LLM with writing their essay, foregoing knowledge acquisition altogether.

All this makes it disconcerting that levels of conscientiousness in the population appear to be in decline. Extending a pioneering 2022 US study which identified early signs of a drop during the pandemic, I found a sustained erosion of conscientiousness, with the fall especially pronounced among young adults.

Digging deeper into the data, which comes from the Understanding America Study, we can see that people in their twenties and thirties in particular report feeling increasingly easily distracted and careless, less tenacious and less likely to make and deliver on commitments.

While a full explanation of these shifts requires thorough investigation, and there will be many factors at work, smartphones and streaming services seem likely culprits. The advent of ubiquitous and hyper-engaging digital media has led to an explosion in distraction, as well as making it easier than ever to either not make plans in the first place or to abandon them. The sheer convenience of the online world makes real-life commitments feel messy and effortful. And the rise of time spent online and the attendant decline in face-to-face interactions enable behaviours such as “ghosting”.

Collapsing conscientiousness is not the only personality shift visible in the data. Neuroticism — a function of the much-discussed increase in anxiety — has risen almost as much. Young adults also report feeling less amiable and outgoing. There’s a particularly steep drop shown in the latter during the pandemic, when young people bore the brunt of restrictions on contact in order to protect others from harm. In fact, long the most extroverted group in society, young adults are now the most introverted.

While the terminology of personality can feel vague, the science is solid. Decades of research consistently finds that all these shifts are in the direction associated with negative outcomes down the line. Life is full of challenges. A less committed, less connected and more easily distressed cohort will navigate them less well.

The Big 5 Personality Traits: A Framework for Understanding Our Differences

Dive into the Big 5 Personality Traits to gain a better understanding of human personality and individual differences. Discover how characteristics like Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism shape who we are and the choices we make in life.

I just sat for two hours on the windowsill and random people from my uni came by and talked to me. Amazing!