Idea: Poor Vision and Social Skills

[Quotidan Torture]

I just had an idea. (This happens occasionally.)

It might be total bunk, but I thought I might toss it around and see what people think about it.

For a very long time, I was terrible at social interaction. I've managed to fix it to a certain degree in recent years, but it was something I'd always struggled with. I also had terrible vision growing up, something that I had to correct with massive, coke bottle thick glasses when I was younger (now contacts). They were the typical nerd glasses, and along with them came the typical nerd stereotyping from other people. At first I assumed it was because people are dicks and look for reasons to single you out and hurt you (and this may be true to a degree), but now I'm beginning to think that there may be more to it.

Non verbal communication, body language, is incredibly important to social interaction. As far as I'm aware, body language, like regular language, isn't hard coded. It's something we pick up from the people around us as we develop. But here's the thing: I didn't get my first pair of corrective lenses until well after I had learned to speak, which is presumably well after the normal period for developing a proper understanding of body language. If I couldn't see jack squat, how could I learn the proper motions and reactions that make up non verbal communication in humans? Did this hurt my social skills? Is that reason for the perception of people with glasses as social outcasts?

Do you guys think there's any validity to my idea, or is this way off the mark?

(Also, I don't want this to turn into a pity party. Yes, I was awkward as a kid. I'm mostly over it now.)

[Superfly]

Not a bad hypothesis for what might have slowed your learning down, but it's probably just one of many factors involved in your social issues.


btw, you're in a cave.

[Whitney]

Unfortunately, children with visual impairments tend to fall below the median in acceptability as playmates in elementary school. Those sighted youngsters who seek out the company of blind children tend to fall below the social median themselves (Kent, 1983). Obviously, the fewer social contacts children have, the fewer opportunities they will have to develop the social skills they need to ensure these contacts. In sighted children, these skills develop largely through observation and imitation. Many researchers recommend teaching social skills to children with visual impairments to help them form the friendships so vital to their development (Zell Sacks, Kekelis & Gaylord-Ross, 1992).

http://www.tsbvi.edu/Education/sexuality-education.htm#social

However, since you are not blind I think it was only a partial factor...you would have still been able to make out larger social indicators such as arm movement and body position not to mention you could hear tone of voice.

[Quotidan Torture]

Not a bad hypothesis for what might have slowed your learning down, but it's probably just one of many factors involved in your social issues.

Probably. Dog knows I had enough issues.

btw, you're in a cave.

See shoutbox.

However, since you are not blind I think it was only a partial factor...you would have still been able to make out larger social indicators such as arm movement and body position not to mention you could hear tone of voice.

True, but that might explain why I wasn't a total social tard. I had friends, at least, but they were all a little weird, like me. Also, a disproportionately large amount of them had glasses, and the ones that didn't I remember as being "cooler", or at least less out of sync with society at large.

Of course, this is a terrible sample size, and all I have to rely on are my fuzzy memories...

[Quotidan Torture]

DOUBLE POST, 2X COMBO:

Another possibility, from the thread that inspired this, on another forum:

Let's play "Blame The Victim"! *canned cheers*

Contestant Number One: Chemo Girl! Her hair all fell out and now all the other kids make fun of her and she doesn't have the energy to fight back since she can't hold down food! Hey Chemo Girl, everyone's mean to you now because you suddenly suck at social skills! You deserve all the punishment you can get! You'll never succeed and no one will ever like you!

Now that Contestant Number One is crying, let's bring out Contestant Number Two! He's a kid of uncertain ethnicity whose parents are moving to Bumblefuck Hickistan. You want to know why all the little bastards are abusing you and the teachers are egging them on? It's because you don't have social skills! It's all your own fault! Hope you enjoy this for the rest of your life because it'll only be getting worse and you can't do anything about it because you are bad at it!

Time for Contestant Number Three...

...well, okay, I can see some of the things they're saying in the article, but as Broomstick points out, they're also missing a lot of stuff, like if the kids can't fucking see. They didn't figure that out for me until I was in third grade, because they usually figure it out when the kid struggles to read, and I'd already learned to compensate. But at the same time, I'd say more of the problem is all the other little worthless fucking bastard spawn who'll turn on each other viciously for any slight whim and their grown-up supervisors who are just as bad, but also more experienced in douchebaggery and more intentionally negligent. And for some damn reason all the systems are set up to support the goddamn bullies, claim they're the ones with the problems when they're just narcissists who need their ribs broken.

And I do await some well-meaning education majors total imbeciles taking this study and going straight down the Blame the Victim road, probably hurting them a hell of a lot more by convincing the kids that it's entirely their faults. And then the bullies will be free to continue to be bullies for the rest of their misery-causing lives. Goddamnit it's like I'm the only person past puberty who remembers what childhood was like.

Apparently lots of people who were picked on have a lot of pent up rage.

[Count Iblis]

Humans are animals. We need to establish pecking orders so that the alpha male will mate with the alpha female and produce alpha children. Perhaps even more importantly we need to prevent the omega males and females from ever mating (and polluting the gene pool). In order get one-up on the competitors the males and female will pounce on any perceived weakness (glasses, being fat, being gay, etc.). It's at this point that the fight or flight instinct kicks in. If you fight you learn fighting social skills. If you flee you learn flight social skills (a.k.a. sucky social skills). 

[Jim]

Blind people can have fine social skills.  They act differently, in that they cannot see gestures, but it isn't as if they are automatically social outcasts.

[Whitney]

QT, do you still have social issues?

If you still can't comprehend various social norms after being able to see then you may have something else that caused/causes the problem.

[Quotidan Torture]

Blind people can have fine social skills.  They act differently, in that they cannot see gestures, but it isn't as if they are automatically social outcasts.

That's a good point... I really don't know what to say about that one.

QT, do you still have social issues?

If you still can't comprehend various social norms after being able to see then you may have something else that caused/causes the problem.

Not really. Nothing more than just your average shyness, really, and I've been working hard to get over that. It's actually not too difficult, once you stop being self conscious all the time.

EDIT: FCUK PROPRE SPELLNG

[Count Iblis]

Not really. Nothing more than just your average shyness, really, and I've been working hard to get over that. It's actually not to difficult, once you stop being self conscious all the time.

I got over my shyness by going to strip clubs and flirting with the strippers.

[R-e-n-n-a-t]

There could be something to that. I had (and still have, to a lesser degree) social problems, and I needed glasses when I was younger. I have contact lenses now.
hmm...

[R-e-n-n-a-t]

I disagree with the "alpha male/female" argument. We have those instincts, but we can choose to ignore them because we are free thinking and self-aware, at least to a greater extent than animals.