Ditching hanging out for isolated scrolling on our sofas is a dangerous habit that warrants help on a par with gambling

Over the decades, research has chipped away at our most cherished ideas about human specialness: it turns out that we share such things as theory of mind, empathy, and time perception with many other creatures .

But there is one feature of humanity that we can claim to be uniquely our own. Animals – unless captured by humans or infected with zombie parasites – tend to act staunchly in their own interests. Why is it that this frog or that bat or this humming-bird behaves in the peculiar way it does? The answer is almost always the same: to further its survival and the propagation of its genes.