According to the American Psychological Association, shyness is identified as “the tendency to feel awkward, worried or tense during social encounters, especially with unfamiliar people,” (2014). Simply put, it’s an emotion that affects how an individual feels and behaves around others, and is the opposite of feeling confident with oneself. Shyness often involves feeling self-conscious, uncomfortable, nervous, or insecure. Shyness can be identified in different levels-mild, medium, or intense, depending on the person and situation they are in. Shy people can experience certain physical symptoms such as blushing, stomach aches, light-headedness, blushing, sweating, erratic heartbeat, and more. They may also have a negative perspective of themselves, …show more content…
Parrott states that social phobia mostly begins in the late teens when they become self-conscious of their body during/after puberty. Parrott also goes on to say that people should make note of the difference between social phobia and social inadequacy (323). Teens can experience social anxiety from poor social skills, but this is not the same as social phobia. Shyness can be a hassle, but social phobia actually prevents people from living a normal daily life. People often confuse shyness with social phobia. Shy people may experience uneasiness around others, but they don’t deal with the same extreme symptoms people with social phobia do. To add to that, shy people don’t take as extreme measures to avoid seeing people like people with social phobia do (Cunninham 2006). Here’s a striking thought-people with social phobia might not be shy at all. People with social phobia can just be anxious about certain situations, such as giving a big speech in front of people, or walking down the aisle and having everyone look at …show more content…
It is considered as a blessing because in some studies, shy people are more sociable on the media, and are able to make more connections, like on Facebook (Lee 2013). The computer screen is considered as a mask, and if people can’t see them, shy adolescents feel as if they are liberated, and won’t be as judged as they are in real life. It is easy to be involved with the anonymity of the internet. However, it can also be considered as a curse because with technology growing rapidly over the years, there has been a lack of face-to-face communication. With that being said, people are losing the ability to being comfortable in those types of interaction. Adolescents can spend hours in chat rooms, email, blogs, etc. This reduces all of the time they could be spending on having face-to-face