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The Psychology of Engineers: a talk on Introversion/Extroversion and Flow

34 pointsby danmccormover 11 years ago

4 comments

thaumaturgyover 11 years ago
Dan, thank you for making this. You did a good job of summarizing and relating the three concepts.<p>I think there were two things that got left out, but the 20 minute time was perfect anyway. First, an emphasis on just how minor a distraction can be to interrupt flow or annoy (some) introverts -- a leaf blower, a ringing phone, staring off into space and having someone else look at you and then try to figure out what you&#x27;re looking at -- and second, that introverts are more likely to have some understanding of introversion v. extroversion and their needs, while many extroverts are oblivious to the differences.<p>I&#x27;ve been living in a sort of introvert&#x27;s hell for a few years now, it&#x27;s really starting to get to me. I live and work in the same house, along with my girlfriend and another person. I don&#x27;t have a space that&#x27;s distinctly mine, and the other person and I run a business together.<p>I supervise his work on and off throughout the day, juggle email and the occasional phone call and a variety of other distractions, but I also need to be doing work that requires focus -- coding on big projects, or, to use yesterday&#x27;s example, redesigning our business cards. While trying to do that, a visitor dropped by and discussed Airsoft at length two feet from my right shoulder, another person came and went, we were expecting another visitor (who didn&#x27;t show until hours later), and my girlfriend needed right at that moment to take pictures of the cat and send them to her friend.<p>I gave up, ran a few errands, went to bed at 7, got up at midnight, just after everyone else had gone to bed, and got the card design knocked out and a few other things taken care of.<p>My sleep schedule is all over the place. Half the time I&#x27;m getting up late and staying up late -- and tolerating the occasional comment about sleeping in so late -- and the other half I&#x27;m going to bed early and getting up early and struggling to get through the day. If I try to code when I&#x27;m up late, I&#x27;m often already exhausted, and focusing for very long is extremely difficult.<p>It&#x27;s rough on my personal life, too; my girlfriend is frustrated that I don&#x27;t want to go out and do things with her and her friends very often, but the thing is, without any downtime of my own, I&#x27;m already in a constant state of social exhaustion. The very last thing I want to do after juggling distractions all day is go out and be social. For her, it would be like having to be cooped up inside, by herself, for a few days, with no outside contact, and then having me come in and suggest a nice quiet evening at home.<p>So, lately this has turned into this overwhelming desire to just leave and go somewhere -- anywhere -- alone, for a week or more, just so I can get some work done.<p>All of which is to say that, left untreated, introversion can lead to insanity. :-)
petesoderover 11 years ago
The format of this vid is interesting to me. We&#x27;ve played different media formats for our engineering talks at g33ktalk (audio, video, slides and sometimes screencaps&#x2F;demos) and it&#x27;s been somewhat challenging to find the best format. Of course, ultimately it depends heavily on an individual user&#x27;s prefs. meaning there&#x27;s no perfect answer.<p>I find this format compelling since it&#x27;s relatively short (19 mins) has high quality audio, and the only visuals are the main points represented as motion graphics.
xutopiaover 11 years ago
I really like the fact that they mention &quot;ambiverts&quot;. So many people think you&#x27;re one or the other extreme.
hhohwaldover 11 years ago
Great talk, very interesting. I feel even more introverted now than before I heard this.