Shyness can be found in extroverts as often as introverts, it is just that the behaviour of an introvert is often similar to someone who is shy. A shy extrovert can be the one who is silently longing to get up and sing 'My Way' on the karaoke but doesn't dare, until they are very drunk or have been dragged on stage.

Here is something that hit me recently: For a long time, I had a certain idea about what makes an introvert or an extrovert. I had always thought that it works something like this:

Extroversion relates to how outgoing someone is.
Introversion is the same as being shy.
That was kind of my general perception. Doing just a little bit of reading made it clear very quickly that my thinking was way off!

Recently I dug into some of the full-on research about introverts versus extroverts, and I think I’m much closer to understanding what the terms introvert and extrovert actually mean. When we briefly discussed this topic internally here at Buffer, a lot of people got very excited. So I hope what I’ve learned might be helpful to you, as well.

You may be considering yourselves as an introvert if you feel that your not really a ''Social Butterfly'' , if we’re being totally honest, we don’t all agree on what that means and often struggle to explain it in elegant terms when someone asks us, “What do you mean, you’re an introvert?”

So, we set out to answer the question once and for all.

If we could break it down into three key findings, we’d say introverts:

-Have deep, rich inner-lives. It’s hard to overstate how “inside their own heads” introverts are.
-Prefer solitude to busy environments. Introverts are most at home… at home.
-Enjoy people, but prefer fewer, deep relationships. It’s all about quality over quantity.
But boiling down an entire personality type to just three bullet points can’t begin to explain the complex and fascinating traits of introverts.

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There are a few theories about the differences between introverts and extroverts, and some recent research has even shown that our genetic makeup has a lot to do with which tendencies are strongest in each of us. And unlike my theory about how outgoing or shy we are, introversion and extroversion actually relate to where we get our energy from.

Or in other words, how we recharge our brains.

Introverts (or those of us with introverted tendencies) tend to recharge by spending time alone. They lose energy from being around people for long periods of time, particularly large crowds.

Extroverts, on the other hand, gain energy from other people. Extroverts actually find their energy is sapped when they spend too much time alone. They recharge by being social.