Selfie

How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It's Doing to Us

Will Storr

2017 • 404 pages

Ratings7

Average rating3.7

‘Fascinating’ Guardian ‘Brilliant’ Evening Standard ‘Electrifying’ Financial Times ‘So interesting I literally couldn’t put it down’ Sunday Times We are living in an age of heightened individualism. Success is a personal responsibility. Our culture tells us that to succeed is to be slim, rich, happy, extroverted, popular – flawless. The pressure to conform to this ideal has changed who we are. We have become self-obsessed. And our expectation of perfection comes at a cost. Millions are suffering under the torture of this impossible fantasy. It was not always like this. To explain how we got here, Will Storr takes us on a journey across continents and centuries. Full of thrilling and unexpected connections between history, psychology, economics, neuroscience and more, Selfie is an unforgettable book that makes sense of who we have become. As featured on Russell Brand’s Under The Skin podcast.

Genre

History

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Popular Reviews

Reviews with the most likes.

Sarah Schumacher

Fantastic. Thorough, well written, covers a lot of history, and is about much more than why kids are always taking pictures of themselves. Good discussion of the rise of perfectionism and concept of the self.

October 24, 2018

Cams

I enjoyed this. It's very modern and idealistic but it hit some high spots for me. I'm 46 and either going through or getting deeper into self evaluation, personal development and spirituality. I've gone through life feeling like an imposter at times, and untouchable at other times. I'm coming to believe that I can be a good person and work things out to be happy.

Some of the characters in the book at tragic. The vagina smell guy - such a shame. The selfie girl. Same. The gangster - an amazing tale of self discovery.

The book talks of motivations and cultural shifts and neo liberalism. I found the latter most enlightening, going back in time to Reagan and Thatcher. The concept of different cultures too - West vs East with the fish analogy. Fascinating.

May 30, 2018