A current TV commercial for a real estate company features a woman who enters a conference room to consult with different versions of herself.

She asks her various personalities – “negative me,” “anti-social me,” “spontaneous me” and so on – for advice on buying a house.

Not so long ago, someone who wanted to buy a house might ask their parents for advice, or consult a sibling or good friend. Perhaps they would bounce a big decision off a trusted colleague at work, or go online and research articles and data.

Now, it’s all about “me.”

The Zillow commercial is emblematic of a society that has elevated self-interest and self-importance to new heights.

Our obsession with ourselves explains why we think we have a right to refuse to wear masks, even if it kills people.

It also explains why we think our personal fears of the COVID-19 virus are sufficient reason to close schools and refuse to go to work, even if health authorities disagree.

How did we get to this point?

First, humans seem designed to put their own interests above others. You can call it survival instinct or a naturally occurring kind of selfishness.

Interestingly, though, we claim to admire people who overcome those tendencies in order to serve their country, or to act for the benefit of their community, or to help complete strangers.

Well, we used to admire such people. A good chunk of America now considers them suckers, or think the only reason to help someone is so you can brag about it on social media.

Companies such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter don’t just tolerate self-obsession, they encourage it, disseminate it worldwide and monetize it.

Let me make clear, these companies have greatly enhanced our ability to communicate with one another and to deliver information. On the upside-downside scale, I’d argue they provide more up than down.

But there’s no doubt that they also encourage and facilitate the “glorification of self.”

Professional achievements, personal grievances, family successes, recipes, athletic competitions, birthdays, opinions – every bit of our lives is worthy of worldwide distribution.

See, it’s not enough to be fascinated with our own lives; we think others should be fascinated as well. And social media companies agree.

But this glorification of self is evident in legacy media as well.

In the newspaper companies for which I worked, the focus on “self” started in the early 2000s. That’s when many newspapers strayed from their mission of focusing on news about their readers, their community and their local institutions – and instead started marketing “content.”

Good journalism didn’t end, but newspaper reporters and editors were instructed to promote their individual “brands” on social media. In the new media environment, we were advised, success would be determined by how successfully individuals marketed themselves and their work on social media.

TV has long operated along similar lines. News shows and TV personalities, for example, are typically judged by their ratings, rather than by the accuracy of what they report, or the value of the information they provide.

I would argue that journalism is better when reporters and editors – and the corporate executives who too often control policy – operate under the premise that the people and entities that journalists cover are more interesting and important than the journalists themselves.

Increasingly, however, newspaper reporters and others who once mostly stayed out of the picture are making sure they are in it.

Those efforts have served the careers of journalists who are savvy about media and marketing. But they haven’t benefited journalism as a profession, nor have they produced a better informed generation of Americans.

Instead, the happy embrace of “me” across all kinds of media prioritizes feelings over fact. It’s about how news makes us feel, not what is true.

This era of “me” welcomes information that jibes with our world view and rejects that which does not.

This era celebrates the notion that each of us is, somehow, one of the most important people on the planet.

Why would we consult others or allow experts to tell us what to do or think? We value our own opinions and desires over expertise, knowledge or the good of society.

It’s worth asking, though, whether this quest to appear smart, popular and important doesn’t instead expose us as small, shallow and unduly smug.