As a UX researcher, I’m trained to observe the subtle ways people interact with the world. Within the last few years, a fascinating pattern has emerged among my peers, friends, and in my own digital life. It’s a four-letter code that has become a new kind of language: MBTI*.
* Short for the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, a self-reported questionnaire that assigns people to one of 16 different personality types. Find out your MBTI here
I see it in bios, being asked in first conversations, and watch it shape new friendships. From the outside, it might look like a simple personality quiz trend. However, from my perspective, it’s a deeply revealing response to a modern problem. In a world saturated with digital tools meant to connect us, I’ve come to discover that shared interests are no longer a reliable predictor of a meaningful connection. And my generation (Gen Z) seems to be building a new system to solve that.
The Limits of Interest Matching
For years, the promise of the internet was connection through shared interests. Digital platforms have become incredibly efficient at grouping us. We can instantly find communities for any hobby (vintage film cameras, niche anime, you name it).
Recently, an interesting paradox has emerged from this efficiency. The more people we meet who share our interests, the more we realize how little that can mean. I’ve seen it (and experienced) countless times where two people who share the same interests meet up, only to find they have nothing to say. For example, I love traveling, but my travel style is proactive. I try to cram as much as possible into a day and enjoy many local street foods. If I’m paired with someone whose style is slow-paced, preferring long walks along canals and extended stops at art galleries, we are not compatible. We have a shared interest, but a clashing experience.
This is the quiet friction of modern relationship-building. Digital tools gave us an abundance of potential connections. Yet they offered no way to gauge the quality or nature of those connections. We are left with a sea of profiles, all saying they like the same things, with no way to know if we’ll click.
Textualizing the Vibe with MBTI
Faced with this inefficiency, my generation did something remarkable. We didn’t wait for a new app to solve the problem. We repurposed an old framework and, through collective adoption, gave it a new purpose. MBTI became our user-created system for textualizing the vibe. From a UX standpoint, validity isn’t measured by academic rigor. It’s measured by utility. Gen Z use this because it solves a problem. Its power lies in offering a shared, simple language for the complex, unspoken parts of human connection.
Tool for self articulation: Before you can find your people, you have to understand yourself. MBTI provides a vocabulary. Saying “I’m an INFP” is more descriptive and less vulnerable than saying, “I easily get exhausted in big groups so might leave early.” It’s a socially accepted shorthand for our personal user manuals.
Tool for efficient filtering: In a world of endless options, we need filters. MBTI provides a new and more meaningful layer. It allows for a pre-emptive filtering based on interaction style. It’s a way of sorting by how they are, not by what people do.
Tool for setting expectations: When someone shares their MBTI, they are offering a clue to their default settings. An ENTP bio is a friendly warning that they love to debate. A friend identifying themselves as an ISFJ is a hint that they might appreciate thoughtful gestures over grand pronouncements. It’s a collaborative effort to reduce misunderstandings before it starts.
The Prediction: “Vibe Matching” > “Interest Matching”
This user-driven behavior is a clear signal. The next generation of matching algorithms, whether in social apps, team-building tools, or community platforms, won’t just connect two people who both like “traveling.” That’s a low-value signal.
Instead, I think the focus will shift to “Vibe Matching.”
What does that mean in practice? It means an effective algorithm will match communication styles. For instance, it will learn that a ‘(P) perceiving / direct & logical’ communicator has their best conversations with someone who is also a (P) or ‘(F) feeling/empathetic’ type who value the honesty.
Broader Implications
This desire to understand and connect on a “vibe” level has implications beyond social apps. It’s a signal of a deeper shift in what we expect from all systems, both digital and real.
What I’ve noticed in my own work is how this thinking permeates our professional lives. Younger workers including myself, want to understand their teammates’ working styles. “Are you a big-picture ‘(N) intuitive’ type or a detail-oriented ‘(S) sensing’ type?” I find myself trying to justify a colleague’s actions or assign tasks based on their type. I see it as one of the ways to create more efficient and empathetic collaboration.
Final Thoughts
Some people might say that the rise of MBTI as a social tool is a sign that Gen Z is obsessed with labels. I agree but also argue that it’s a sign that we are deeply invested in the quality of our connections.
We are using these four-letter codes to navigate a world that has become simultaneously more connected and more isolating. We are building a new layer of communication on top of the digital infrastructure we inherited. It is a silent, collective action, and incredibly insightful UX project happening at a massive scale.
As researchers, our job is to keep an eye on these trends, to be aware of what is happening around us, and to incorporate this knowledge into our work.
Connecting a current cultural trend to identify a deeper human need.
This captures the fundamental principle of effective UX thinking. In this case, the MBTI phenomenon is one of the most important signals we have about the future of human interaction itself.
About Uism
Our mission is to understand the deep, often unspoken, human needs that drive behavior. We believe the most powerful insights come from observing how people adapt to the world around them. This post is an observation from one of our own researchers on a profound shift happening right now: a shift that reveals what the next generation truly values and how businesses can build more meaningful connections with them.
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