That is bullshit myth, frankly. It is no different then any other white collar job - economist spend spend hours every day sitting at a desk, in front of a computer, focused on numbers. Moreover, many if not most positions require quite a lot of communication. Even more if you work in agile team - you have to be serious extrovert to be happy in that situation. Most coding only positions are junior positions - anything above that (plus few rare positions) and you are have to fight to have enough time at a desk.

If this is the reason people avoid this job, maybe we should stop lying to them about what the work actually is.