My Big Question

My initial response to "What's Your Big Question" was agreement because when we were younger, we didn't really care about what others thought about our likes and dislikes so we would ask and answer a lot of questions. I was thinking about this the other day: I  was so confident through my elementary school years and as each year went by, the more I (and other people) lost that confidence and stopped asking questions. If we gather the courage to do so, we feel a sort of embarrassment afterwards because we feel everyone is judging us. My big question is- Why are we so fixated on what other people think about us and let that stop us for asking questions?