At one point or another, the issue of social anxiety effects everyone. With that said, it’s still debated as to whether a person’s social capabilities can be built or whether they’re just the way they are and there’s nothing that can be done to make a person more sociable. The general consensus being that there are certain ways in which social skill can be built and developed through practices such as controlled breathing, gradual social interaction, and even meditation. Osbourn students chimed in with their personal stories and solutions, so here’s what they said.

Upon being interviewed and asked what people could do individually to aid their social capabilities, Senior Keiry told The Talon: “Participate more in presentations in front of people. Just be comfortable within your inner self. That’s all. ” Keiry’s “throw yourself into the deep end” approach to cultivating inner confidence is an extreme but common and nevertheless intriguing approach to the development of proper sociability and mitigation of the symptoms of social anxiety, but is there an actual disorder attached to social anxiety? To find this out, The Talon badgered the school’s excellent psychology teachers for an expert opinion.

First to answer the question, (because he was first to be interviewed) Mr. Johnson said this on the matter: “It’s possible they [shyness and Social Anxiety Disorder] could be connected, but for some people, I think it’s just shyness, so I don’t know. I’ve never looked into that.” Probing further, The Talon asked Mr. Johnson what an individual could do to become more sociable to which he said: “I mean, I wouldn’t throw them into a situation that would overwhelm them, but gradualization would probably be more beneficial. Something like small things to try to get them out there, you know, connecting with others, start small then eventually branch out.” Mr. Johnson’s recommended remedy for the socially impaired leaned very strongly towards the “a little bit at a time” approach seen largely in physical pursuits, but it is common to find this suggested solution all over the conversation regarding Social Anxiety Disorder.

This solution seems to hold weight in the psychological community, and it appears to have worked for Moises, a senior at Osbourn, for whom this solution was the key driver in his social development. “There may be times when I was nervous,” said the senior, “but I just kept talking to people and, you know, it was good.” His story suggests that with light and gradual interaction, one can get an opportunity to understand things that do and don’t work in a social setting and gain a stronger understanding of how to effectively and charismatically navigate social interactions without overwhelming them with the intrinsic pressure of interpersonal performance.

This is fine food for thought, but it does nothing in the way of providing empirical evidence as to whether or not Social Anxiety Disorder is a genuine condition or just an exaggeration of brief shyness. The validity of the potential disorder was very much up in the air, so with one expert interview left, there was a good bit riding on the interview answers. When asked if Social Anxiety Disorder is real, Mr. Zenewicz told The Talon: “No there’s definitely anxiety and we can see it in the way our body responds. So if we put somebody on a heart monitor or something we would see that their blood pressure would go up, we’d see that their heart rate would go up as well.” With that said, the idea of objective, proven anxiety in regard to Social Anxiety Disorder is validated with physical symptoms as a nice little cherry on top.

As intriguing as these expert statements are, they go nowhere in actually helping students become more comfortable in social situations. To rectify this, Mr. Zenewicz was subsequently asked what a student could do to strengthen their social capabilities, to which he said this: “There’s meditation practices, there’s strategies just for becoming more social. Some people would probably use a type of therapy where you would try it a little bit at a time, being more social and more social until you got to that comfortable level, but it’s certainly a real thing, yeah.” Mr. Zenewicz’s statement highlights the variety of potential remedies for the issue of social anxiety, and it still lists the “a little bit at a time” approach as an effective method for quelling the symptoms of that constant social reluctance.

To wrap things up, according to our own psychology teachers, Social Anxiety Disorder is a strongly-backed, evidence-based mental condition. It affects many people around the world, particularly many students at Osbourn. However, it’s important to remember that just because it’s a mental condition doesn’t mean that there’s nothing people can do to alleviate the troublesome symptoms it causes.