Acting selfishly for our own benefit in a rational manner is best for all, one could say.
That is the main thing I tried to get across. ;)
It's valid from my view of things. I don't think they, or I, tried to paint it as black and white
I do not think you tried to paint it in any way, but the original article did. It might be that I am just very biased in general towards statistics and especially the ones based on surveys. To shortly explain that:
People in a poll might not be honest. Just because someone says he is social does not mean he actually is.
Statistics can only discover correlation, but people tend to make causation conclusions.
Studies are often conducted to reach a certain conclusion, so there is a incentive to rig the surveys in slight ways (maybe even subconsciously) that help to reach said conclusion.
There is no reason to apologize to someone like me, who has severe trust issues when it comes to statistics (and my personal life :D). Thank you for your extensive replies.