This cycle unnaturally exacerbates and intensifies the natural orientation toward the group. And although we all share in this disposition to varying degrees, it is most pronounced in the stages of life that we call adolescence and emerging adulthood. Ethologists call this orientation “homing to the herd,” an adaptation of certain species, such as passenger pigeons and herring, that home to the crowd rather than to a particular territory. In the confrontation with human predators, however, this instinct has proven fatal.

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Cap…, loc. 1486