While there’s no compulsive shopping gene, there are several theories about why people are more susceptible to addictive and obsessional behaviors. It might have a genetic basis, but Annie Gurton thinks the reality is addictions are more likely to have an environmental cause.

For now it seems we’ll just have to rely on authors and Hollywood to give us the visions of immortality we hope to achieve, but who knows how far behind science might be?

The drive to connect and communicate is in fact so strong it exists even in the absence of the communication methods most of us know – it’s a drive we can’t hold in any more than the instinct to eat or sleep.