" What Cate had noticed was a symptom of a hard form of individualism that characterized not only these people, but so many of us who share their culture. When we defined ourselves, all those centuries ago, as things that were separate from our environment and from each other, we turned our back on a truth that the descendants of Confucius knew well. We're connected. We're a highly social species. Almost everything we do impacts on someone else, in one way or another. Changes we make to our environment form ripples that spread out, far into the human universe. These ripples are easy to ignore. Especially for us Westerners, many are invisible. But they're there, no matter how convenient or seductive it might be to pretend otherwise and deny responsibility for anyone but our own sacred selves. "

― Will Storr , Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It's Doing to Us