Why don't people stop to help the stricken?

As a consequence, the real world environment is capturing less of our attention, which means that our reaction times may be slower when something goes wrong in the real world.

Research coming out of the US has implicated social media and the internet generally in a rise in levels of narcissism in society.

Well documented studies suggest that levels of self-centred behaviour have risen alongside the growth of self-gratification technologies such as those provided by the digital economy.

One US study involved the so-called Narcissistic Personality Index, a tool used for measuring relative levels of self-obsessive behaviour between generational cohorts. It reviewed narcissistic traits among college-aged students between 1976 and 2006. It found that levels had markedly increased during that time.

Some experts postulated that the difference was due largely to different styles of parenting.

A number of other studies have suggested that parents of Generation X young people tended to be less engaged or overtly encouraging than those of the subsequent Millennial generation. This was suggested as one reason for the rise in self-obsessive behaviour patterns in the early part of this century.

However, technology has also been cited as a possible contributing factor. The fact that social media platforms have emerged with such speed, driven largely on the back of their popularity among Millennials, suggests that something fundamental is changing in the way people interact – and that this change began among young adults.

These technologies allow us to meet many of our own needs with little more effort than the click of a smartphone button. This arguably lessens our sense of reliance on human beings in our immediate physical space.

Ironically, an age of digital connectedness corresponds with a time of increased off-line disconnection.

Last month I wrote that in the wake of the Paris terror attacks, we might reflect on the fragility of civilisation.

In the digital age, we might imagine that we can safely exist within highly individualised mental enclaves, cut off from the discomforting realities of civic life.

The Paris attacks reminded us of the importance of engaging with the real world; that we may sometimes be called upon to actively and deliberately stand up for the freedoms we take for granted.