You don’t know me, but my personality type is INFP-T, my Hogwarts House is Gryffindor, my Faction is
Amity, and my Godly parent is Apollo. Buzzfeed Quiz says, based on my breakfasting habits, my future
wedding should be forest-themed, and that the best song for me to feel good to in the morning is
September by Earth Wind and Fire. According to 16Personalities, I’m a Mediator and have the same
personality type as Tolkien and Shakespeare (though, how they got that information I’m not at liberty to
say). You now know me better than my flatmates do, and Meta can only wish they could harvest this
much information from me so concisely.
It doesn’t take a genius to guess what’s on this week’s agenda: the problem with the personality quiz.
When you’re thirteen, it’s fun – guessing which evil animated character your friend might be based on
their music taste, or figuring out which type of bread is best suited to your fashion sense. It sounds
harmless, so what’s the problem?
My answer: dependency.
We see it every day with Astrological readings. Suddenly, our entire lives make sense based on the hour
we were born. Instead of allowing our experiences to shape who we are, personality quizzes enable us
to dictate our personalities based on the results of a quiz asking us about our likes and dislikes.
Responsibilities are negated by blaming it on a label assigned to us by an online computer system (“So
what if I can’t handle emotions, I’m a Pisces!”).
It can also lead to quizzes with slightly more detrimental results, such as “What percentage do you
suffer with anxiety?” or “Answer these questions and we’ll tell you if you’re a psychopath!” (likely
created by people without a medical background, but since every answer has been so relatable before,
this one must also be true, right?). Relying on personality quizzes to provide us with community and
expecting all our life’s problems to be explained is not the solution; taking time away from the internet
and its data collection is.
There’s a reason we don’t live in a Divergent-like world; humans cannot simply fit into one box – we are
destined to grow and change. Evolution is a scientific theory; the ‘This or That’ quiz is not. Being yourself
is not basic, being original does not have to mean having the same personality type as Katniss Everdeen,
and you’re not cool if you’re an INFJ (which is the rarest category, apparently). Trust that whoever you
are is enough, and that no one is going to care about that one embarrassing quiz result you got when
you were 15.
“buzzfeed” by Tech in Asia is licensed under CC BY 2.0.