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philh comments on Stupid Questions December 2014 - Less Wrong Discussion
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Is there a causal link between being relatively lonely and isolated during school years and (higher chance of) ending up a more intelligent, less shallow, more successful adult?
Imagine that you have a pre-school child who has socialization problems, finds it difficult to do anything in a group of other kids, to acquire friends, etc., but cognitively the kid's fine. If nothing changes, the kid is looking at being shunned or mocked as weird throughout school. You work hard on overcoming the social issues, maybe you go with the kid to a therapist, you arrange play-dates, you play-act social scenarios with them..
Then your friend comes up to have a heart-to-heart talk with you. Look, your friend says. You were a nerd at school. I was a nerd at school. We each had one or two friends at best and never hung out with popular kids. We were never part of any crowd. Instead we read books under our desks during lessons and read SF novels during the breaks and read science encyclopedias during dinner at home, and started programming at 10, and and and. Now you're working so hard to give your kid a full social life. You barely had any, are you sure now you'd rather you had it otherwise? Let me be frank. You have a smart kid. It's normal for a smart kid to be kind of lonely throughout school, and never hang out with lots of other kids, and read books instead. It builds substance. Having a lousy social life is not the failure scenario. The failure scenario is to have a very full and happy school experience and end up a ditzy adolescent. You should worry about that much much more, and distribute your efforts accordingly.
Is your friend completely asinine, or do they have a point?
My friend isn't obviously-to-me wrong, but their argument is unconvincing to me.
It's normal for a smart kid to be kind of lonely - if true, that's sad, and by default we should try to fix it.
It builds substance - citation neded. It seems like it could just as easily build insecurity, resentment, etc.
Lousy social life - this is a failure mode. It might not be the worst one, but it seems like the most likely one, so deserving of attention.
Ditzy adolescent - how likely is this?
FWIW, I'm an adult who was kind of lonely as a kid, and on the margin I think that having a more active social life then would have had positive effects on me now.
True, but it may be one of those problems that's just not fixable without seriously restructuring the school system, especially if something like Villiam_Bur's theory is true.
Speaking from experience, I can tell you that I know a lot more than any of my peers (I'm 16), and practically all of that is due to the reading I did and am still doing. That reading was a direct result of my isolation and would likely not have occurred had I been more socially accepted. I should add that I have never once felt resentment or insecurity due to this, though I have developed a slight sense of superiority. (That last part is something I am working to fix.)
I suppose this one depends on how you define a "failure mode". I have never viewed my lack of social life as a bad thing or even a hindrance, and it doesn't seem like it will have many long-term effects either--it's not like I'll be regularly interacting with my current peers for the rest of my life.
Again, this depends on how you define "ditzy". Based on my observations of a typical high school student at my age, I would not hesitate to classify over 90% of them as "ditzy", if by "ditzy" you mean "playing social status games that will have little impact later on in life". I shudder at the thought of ever becoming like that, which to me sounds like a much worse prospect than not having much of a social life.
I see. Well, to each his own. I myself cannot imagine growing up with anything other than the childhood I did, but that may just be lack of imagination on my part. Who knows; maybe I would have turned out better than I did if I had had more social interaction during childhood. Then again, I might not have. Without concrete data, it's really hard to say.
Reading a ton as a teen was very helpful to me also, but I think I would have still done it if I had a rich social life of people who were also smart and enjoyed reading. Ultimately being around peers who challenge me is more motivating than being isolated; I don't want to be the one dragging behind.
I do feel that I had to learn a fair amount of basic social skills through deliberately watching and taking apart, rather than just learning through doing--making me somewhat the social equivalent of someone who has learned a foreign language through study rather than by growing up a native speaker; I have the pattern of strengths and weaknesses associated with the different approach.
There may be a choice between a lot of time thinking/learning vs. a lot of time socializing.
It seems to me that a lot of famous creative people were childhood invalids, though I haven't heard of any such from recent decades. It may be that the right level of invalidism isn't common any more.