When I asked Kaewmala her thoughts on this prognosis, she seemed sceptical. "I think we've got more fundamental problems than youthful obsession with selfies," she said. "The DMH might be mixing the symptom with the cause of social ill - if it's a social ill. Extreme popularity of selfies in Thailand seems to me more symptomatic of Thai education and socialisation that values form more than substance. It's appearance over content - outside as opposed to inside. The manifest face culture in the digital era.