Selfie - Paperback

by Will Storr (Author)

Provocative, humane, and deeply readable, Selfie is both a sweeping intellectual history and an urgent diagnosis of modern life.

This book, which NPR's On Point says is a "terrific tour through the history of self-obsession," offers readers a powerful new way to understand who we are, why we feel the way we do--and how we might loosen the grip of an ideal that was never designed to make us whole.

We live in an age of relentless self-scrutiny. From social media feeds to self-help mantras, we are told that success, happiness, and even moral worth begin and end with the individual self. In Selfie, award-winning journalist Will Storr asks a disturbing question: where did this idea of the "perfect self" come from--and what is it doing to us?

Drawing on psychology, neuroscience, history, economics, and cultural analysis, Storr traces the evolution of the Western self from Ancient Greece through Christianity, the Enlightenment, and the rise of modern consumer culture. Along the way, he reveals how centuries-old beliefs about identity and virtue have fused with contemporary technology to create a culture of perfectionism, personal branding, and chronic comparison.

Storr shows how today's obsession with self-esteem and individual achievement has left many people anxious, isolated, and unhappy. Rather than making us freer or more fulfilled, the modern cult of the self often deepens feelings of inadequacy and fuels rising levels of depression, narcissism, and social fragmentation.