The Rise of the New Groupthink by Susan Cain - Essay Example

The main point Susan Casserts in her essay “The Rise of the New Groupthink” is that in general solitude is a great way for people to become more creative and productive, as generating ideas by themselves is much better than working in a team. The main arguments the author uses are scientific explorations, probably, mostly psychological and sociological data, which help her to support the fact that group thinking is less effective than a solitary one. First of all, it is because of the division of people into introverts and extraverts. In conformity with this theory, introverts are obviously less in the mood for working together with anybody, as they can’t focus on their job, constantly getting irritated by uncomfortable conditions of being among other people when they’d prefer being alone.

Also, many people are distracted by the need to be accepted by the public and this often stands on their way to creative ideas. It frequently happens that people become suppressed by public influence or prefer to shift their job responsibilities on others, which reduces the effectiveness of common work as distinct from the personal one. One of the most convenient simultaneously solitude and common kinds of communication, according to the author, is the Internet as their people can be both alone and with others.

The arguments at which Susan Cain points out in her essay are definitely reasonable for me. The thing is that I’ve noticed that frequently I’m less effective in group work than when I create something by myself. Probably, this happens because of multiple reasons, many of which are mentioned in the essay. Among them are my shyness while working with others, habit to shift responsibilities to others, and distraction being among others. In addition, the historical evidence shows that most geniuses were total introverts and created their ideas while alone.

Perhaps, it may also depend on the division of people into the two kinds, and introverts may be just less gifted in social aspect being more effective in solitude. And this is a fact that frequently intellectually gifted people suffer from their disability to communicate with others. As they say: to each their own. In general, the opinion essay is definitely useful as it makes you think about some crucial tendencies of group work in business, religion, and education, so you start noticing all the advantages and disadvantages of both solitude and group approaches of the working process.