Have you ever enthusiastically greeted someone in the hallway only to get a quick nod of acknowledgement in return? In recent years, teenagers have paid increasing attention to their actions to uphold a “nonchalant” personality.

Characterized by indifference and a relaxed demeanor, a nonchalant person rarely displays vulnerability and often appears uninvested while a chalant person is warm, responsive and engaged. A nonchalant person might choose to avoid unnecessary interactions in group settings and stick to superficial conversations in relationships. The word “nonchalant” is frequently found thrown around in the classroom or on social media as the younger generations assume this persona, with the hashtag reaching over 575,900 posts on TikTok.

nonchalance

[noun]: calm behavior that suggests you are not interested or do not care.

Source: Cambridge Dictionary

Sophomore Lilia Borokhovich has encountered numerous nonchalant people throughout her day-to-day life and noted a surge in the persona in the past few years.

“If I’m working in a group with someone, and they’re acting nonchalant, they zone out and don’t listen to the teacher, don’t contribute a lot and just feel like they have to stay in place and keep their image perfect,” Borokhovich said.

Junior BeEmnet Amare shares a similar perspective when it comes to social media’s involvement in the rise of nonchalance.

“[As] teenagers, we care a lot about how our friends and our classmates think of us. Now that we have this new term, ‘nonchalant,’ everyone’s aware of it, so they try to implement that term into their everyday lives,” Amare said. “It also brings us back to social media — we’re on our phone so much, so if it’s in front of you for so long, you tend to move your way towards that term and the lifestyle.”

Additionally, Amare thinks the desire to be nonchalant can be related to adolescents’ inability to realize that others’ thoughts and actions don’t revolve around them.

“In psychology, we’re learning about egocentrism, where adolescents feel the need to act a certain way because they feel like everyone’s watching them,” Amare said. “Now that we’re at this stage of life, we feel like whatever we do, whatever we wear, the way we act — everyone pays attention to it.”

Sophomore Ryan Wang also emphasizes how social media has contributed to a rise in the popularity and critique of nonchalance. Wang believes that social media glorifies ideal personalities, and some people choose to adhere to the popularized personas.

“Some more chalant people probably have stronger opinions towards nonchalance nowadays, with the rise of social media and with people aiming for an ideal persona,” Wang said. “It’s pretty two sided — there are people who really like listening to trends and stuff they like. They want to be the ideal that is described in social media trends and also popular creators while some people just don’t care.”

Amare believes that social media plays a role in shaping users’ opinions, and people perceive nonchalance positively, negatively or neutrally based on the type of content they see.

“It depends on which side of social media you’re on,” Amare said. “If you consider yourself as a nonchalant person, you’d get a lot more positive reactions. If you’re like me and you’re against nonchalant people, you would get a lot of negative responses.”

Additionally, freshman Briana Kearney noted that social media can indirectly popularize different personalities and ideas by spotlighting certain topics.

“Being nonchalant is definitely a bigger [personality commonized online], but also being friendly has gotten a lot more popular as a personality because of mental health and how much that’s being broadcasted out on social media,” Kearney said.

Kearney also noticed that nonchalance has developed a mixed connotation among students.

“Some people take it as negative. Some people take it as neutral. It’s just the certain way that you see it,” Kearney said. “I see it as negative personally because I feel like it’s not showing who you actually are.”

Similarly, Borokhovich agrees that nonchalant people portray an inauthentic persona by not saying anything.

“I know some people are naturally just ignorant and kind of shy, but I think specifically a lot of boys try to put on this persona that they don’t care about anything, and they act all tough,” Borokhovich said.

Wang cares less about how others choose to portray themselves. Because he doesn’t like to engage in conversational topics he doesn’t feel strongly about, he thinks he comes off as nonchalant sometimes.

“Anyone could have their own personality,” Wang said. “Some people could choose to care more about stuff. Some people could choose to care less.”

Oftentimes, shy people may be viewed as nonchalant. While Borokhovich acknowledges this, she emphasizes how it’s become a way for some people to mask their true self.

“I’m sure there are some people who are just naturally quiet and introverted, or they just don’t have a big personality, but I think among certain groups of boys, it’s more of a trend, like something they take on rather than who they truly are,” Borokhovich said.

Borokhovich and Kearney have both found nonchalance to be more common in men than women. In 2009, Neill Korobov, who holds a Ph.D. in developmental psychology, analyzed numerous psychology studies that examined heterosexual white males’ behavior when talking about their romantic relationships. Korobov noted that instead of straightforwardly displaying traditional heroic masculinity, the men would utilize nonchalance and irony, suggesting that the alternative persona is rearticulation of traditional masculinity. 

Senior Brady Smith, who says his laid-back nature can be interpreted as nonchalance, believes that expressing character correlates more with comfort rather than the desire to convey an inauthentic personality.

“Everyone is different around people they’re close to versus people they don’t really know. I don’t think that’s you not being your true self,” Smith said. “You’re not going to be talkative all the time, and you’re not gonna be quiet all the time.”

Borokhovich acknowledges people’s individual choices but takes issue when nonchalant behavior affects others.

“I try not to let it affect me because they’re their own people,” Borokhovich said. “They can do whatever they want, but in moments [where] I have to depend on them for something, and they just care about how they come off, that bothers me.”

Smith thinks that while nonchalant people may be perceived as “cool,” they are often stereotyped as egotistical or unfriendly for being closed off, which isn’t objectively true. Additionally, Smith doesn’t care a lot about how he’s perceived by other people.

“To an extent, everyone [cares], but I wouldn’t say I’m worried about it,” Smith said. “If people say I’m nonchalant, I’m not gonna complain. It’s cool, but it’s not something I’m stressing about.”

For Smith, being naturally shy has made it hard to build relationships quickly. Around people he’s more comfortable with, he’s louder and more energetic.

“If you’re more closed off and less willing to talk to people that you don’t have that connection with, then you won’t make friends as quickly,” Smith said. “I made a lot of friends that, if I talked more or been more open, I would have became friends with them sooner.”

Wang doesn’t notice a difference when establishing connections with diverse types of people, regardless of their character.

“I just like making friends with people in general,” Wang said. “I don’t really care much about their personalities, unless they’re just straight up toxic.”

As high school students navigate an impressionable period of their life — especially with the presence of social media — they are vulnerable to social expectations. Amare hopes that people are true to themselves and feel comfortable with the person they are.

“I value individualism, so I think people should be acting the way they want to act and shouldn’t be changing the way that they do things because they want to gain approval from people,” Amare said.