social phobia = psychiatric disorder, in case i can't speak in public? do i have to speak in public? i'd be very careful with that kind of judgement. in general, having experience with how "modern medicine" and society in general handle such proclaimed "problems", psychology is a great deal of bullshit.
i myself don't like masses of people. i embrace this preference. and i love it. most amassment of people aren't even useful.
to everybody who's eating chemicals because some say you don't fit in: STOP IT. tell them to fit in. don't sell yourself and everybody like you to pharmaceuticals and others.
btw: did they actually disable copying of text (on iOS) on this site?
No, an important aspect of mental diagnosis is that the patient is actively troubled by the problem but is unable to change on his own; otherwise it is more of personality. If you just hate socializing, you don't have social phobia. If you sincerely believe that washing your hands every ten minutes make you cleaner and do so, you don't have OCD.
Psychologists are not as eager to judge as you might imagine.
I'll bet a lot of people take these drugs not because they have to but want to. They want to look the part for work, or talk to the hot chick in the bar.
So, you clearly do not have social phobia. Yes, it is a legitimate disorder, and it can be quite disabling when it's severe.
It's not about not being able to speak in public. Imagine suffering from panic attacks and not being able to leave your house for days, because you're afraid someone will say hi to you. That's social anxiety.
Your attitude "STOP IT. tell them to fit in" is the reason many people with social anxiety, and many other psychiatric disorders end up committing suicide.
When an irrational fear prevents you from doing something, that's basically a definition of psychiatric disorder.
It doesn't matter if you have no great desire to do it in the first place. If someone thinks an activity isn't useful then that can mitigate a phobia, but it's orthogonal to the actual existence or not of a phobia.
Nobody is judging you for your preferences. "won't" and "can't" are different things.
So if you're calling the overuse of chemicals bullshit, fine. But don't call a clear diagnosis bullshit.
The article was certainly a bit casual with its terms, but as a human being, you shouldn't be generally nervous about mere socialization with others. You may be specifically nervous, if you need to impress the others, or if you're in a foreign land for the first time, but you should not generally be nervous about all social interaction. If you are, you have a problem. It may not be something that we should necessarily throw medication at, we've all got problems of one sort or another, the benefits of medication may not outweigh the costs, but it is a problem.
Nervousness is different than boredom, lack of desire, or lack of seeking it out. I can cover those bases quite well. I often don't want to socialize. But I'm not fearful of it, I just find it boring in most groups.
On the other hand, "public speaking", as in, getting up in front of a crowd and making any sort of speech, well, I've heard multiple people who make a living doing it that they never actually stop being nervous about it before hand. They learn how to get through it, but they're always nervous. Heck, I daresay such nerves are rational, really. That would seem to be a different category of issue.
i myself don't like masses of people. i embrace this preference. and i love it. most amassment of people aren't even useful.
to everybody who's eating chemicals because some say you don't fit in: STOP IT. tell them to fit in. don't sell yourself and everybody like you to pharmaceuticals and others.
btw: did they actually disable copying of text (on iOS) on this site?