The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was created as a personality typing system by Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers. The system was based on the theories of Carl Jung, who proposed that human personality is made up of four distinct categories. Both Jung and the originators of the Myers-Briggs were psychologists who were fascinated by what makes people the way that they are. The Myers-Briggs is a system that is meant to categorize people into sixteen different types based on traits such as where one gets energy from and how decisions are made. The MBTI was the product of years of research and testing. According to "Theories of Personality," by Schultz and Schultz, the system has high reliability and validity.

That being said, we as a culture have made a habit of misusing the MBTI.

The MBTI has become a slave to pop psychology, a trend which strays away from the scientific qualities of psychology in order to appease mass appeal. People who would like to make a big deal out of their personality type without understanding the purpose of personality typology have reduced the fine-tuned instrument to something on the level of horoscopes.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the current cultural obsession with extraversion and introversion. Step into the sphere of the Internet for a few moments, and you will find articles talking about how misunderstood an extrovert is and how you can best take care of your introverted loved ones. People have even made a spectrum with words like “ambivert” because it is sometimes hard for people to believe that they fit into one category or another.

Here’s a news flash: you don’t.

The simple fact is that we have oversimplified the topic of introversion and extraversion, allowing people to comfortably fit themselves into convenient and ridiculously uniform boxes for absolutely no reason. This is a problem for two reasons.

First, the individual now has an excuse to not take responsibility for his or her actions. Consider an introvert who has been around people for a little too long and lashes out angrily at those around him because he has not had his alone time. Or perhaps there is an extrovert who spends no time engaged in quiet reflection and so becomes emotionally stunted simply because she loves to be around people so much. Our so-called “types” are no excuse to treat others or ourselves poorly, but because there is a title that we can give to the source of our behavior we sometimes feel as though we can get away with doing whatever we want. That is not the case. Introvert or extrovert, I don't care. Be a pleasant person.

Second, society does a very good job of raising us inside of easy to understand boxes. We are taught cultural norms early and given expectations throughout life that attempt to shape us into easy-to-swallow, cookie-cutter people. Our lives are already constrained enough by normality, why should we bother constraining ourselves further by attempting to fit our personality, our very self, our soul into one of sixteen categories? Why should we commit to a life sentence of extraversion or introversion without leaving ourselves any room to grow and change? Every time I have taken the MBTI, I have gotten 100% on the extrovert scale. It took me a long time to move on from that a bit and realize that my MBTI score does not mean that I never want to be alone. Sometimes people are stupid, and I need a break, even though, most of the time, being with people is all I want to do.

The MBTI is not the problem here. We as inquiring minds are the problem when we allow something like the MBTI to prescribe the way of our life, giving us excuses to not act properly, and making who we are as people synthetic and small. So, no, I don't particularly care what kind of "vert" you are, or what you think that means for you. The Myers-Briggs is meant to be used to help describe you. Stop using it to define you instead.