I am glad that Stephen Fry has confessed to feeling “more sheepish than a sheep and more t**ttish than a t**t” for threatening to abandon Twitter because a fan dared to call his tweets “a bit boring”.

Presumably Fry, a man of great intelligence, realised that sulking was making him look more prickly than a . . . well, you get the idea.* There’s nothing wrong with being boring occasionally, Stephen. Hey, I do it all the time. And there’s certainly no need to be hurt because one follower — one — out of 945,219 devotees ventures the opinion that you might not be 100 per cent brilliantly fascinating for 24 hours of each day.

But then Fry is not the only one behaving a little touchily these days.

Some psychologists believe that millions of us are suffering from “oversensitivity”, interpreting every small slight as rejection and withering like salted slugs if a colleague doesn’t say “good morning” in a sufficiently upbeat way. This is variously down to a fragmented society, job insecurity, growing perfectionism and the fact that no matter how hard we try we just cannot get our hair to look as nice as Cheryl Cole’s.

A consultant, who advises human resources executives in New York, elaborates at Forbes.com this month in an article entitled “Taking Things a Little Too Personally?” She detects a society with increasingly thin skin, her clients telling of employees “jumping to conclusions” whenever they are being constructively criticised, assuming they are getting the boot. “It gets blown out of proportion,” she says.

Oversensitivity is described as the last unexplored, but very real, social problem.

Well, yes — we do seem to be a bunch of big girls’ blouses these days, taking offence at the drop of a hat and blubbing like crybabies if an X Factor contestant manages to get through a song with a sore throat. Such delicate flowers have we become that producers recently tried to have the phrase “Oh, sweet Jesus” removed from a script of My Family, already the tamest and lamest “comedy” show imaginable, lest it caused upset.

There have been 50 complaints over Miranda Hart, the host of Have I Got News for You, describing the Queen and her husband as “that Greek twit and his Kraut wife” even though it was a (quite funny) reference to the Duke of Edinburgh having made off-colour remarks at a meeting of Indian representatives. Why are we suddenly so easily affronted? I saw a woman burst into tears in a restaurant recently because she thought the waiter was ignoring her.

It’s ironic that in an age when we willingly expose ourselves more than ever — via Facebook, Twitter, confessional blogs, googling our own names — our egos seem to have grown more fragile. Feed me attention, we say, but only on my terms. Katie Price, a woman who courts publicity like a Jack Russell pursues a rat down a hole, ranted this week that “haters” are saying horrid things about her and implored them to “leave me be”. She did this on Twitter.

Oversensitivity can take many forms. I can’t be the only one who thinks that Rebecca Adlington has overreacted to Frankie Boyle’s remarks about her, can I? Boyle, a famously straight-talking comedian, remarked on Mock the Week that Adlington “has the face of someone who’s looking at themselves in the back of a spoon”. Some 75 viewers complained, he was rebuked by the BBC Trust, which ruled it was unfair and offensive, and Boyle has since left the show of his own accord. An end to the matter surely? Well, no. Adlington’s agent has written to the BBC complaining that the punishment wasn’t severe enough for his “disgraceful” slurs. He has suggested that Boyle be banned from appearing on BBC shows.

It wasn’t a nice thing for a young woman to hear, granted, but isn’t this totally OTT? Rebecca Adlington is a nationally loved, hugely successful athlete who was tough enough to endure the gruelling training it took to win two Olympic gold medals. Her self-esteem must be high enough to brush off a silly, cutlery-based joke? I don’t know what punishment they have in mind for Boyle (perhaps BBC Trust members sticking his head down a toilet while calling him a “speccy bastard with rubbish hair”? His autobiography is called My Shit Life So Far so I don’t bank on him caring much) but I think Rebecca would have been better advised to let it go. Besides, only a few people saw Mock the Week originally but now many thousands have been alerted to the clip on YouTube and have written how hilarious they thought it was.

Hats off to Wayne Rooney. Ever since he was 17 he has heard his looks described as “Shrek”, “Mr Potato Head” and much worse but he’s taken it all on the chin (insert your own prostitute-based jokes here). I’m no fan of the Duchess of Cornwall but there’s never been a whinny of protest from her on the occasions that she has been described as looking like a knackered horse. I admire Ann Widdecombe, Janet Street-Porter and, God forgive me, Victoria Beckham for showing similar repose in the face of bitchiness. Sometimes it’s just not worth it.

Not that I don’t see why people such as Fry occasionally get upset (even though, let’s not forget, that they can dish it out). Anyone who has ever read hostile readers’ comments under a piece that she has written on the web will know that it sometimes feels like setting fire to one’s own head while listening to a loudspeaker telling you that you are an illiterate arse with a face like curdled rice pudding. But I just laugh it off — ha-ha-ha! Eventually.

I assumed, however, that if you’re a national treasure such as Fry, whom people wish to hug in the street and who write how wonderful and cuddlesome you are, then that might help inure you against the odd pooey comment. Apparently not. David Schneider, the writer and actor and an avid tweeter, says that as a performer he understands Fry’s meltdown.

“Compliments are like water through fingers to a perfomer,” he writes. “Who cares about a thousand compliments; a single insult confirms what we all feel deep down is true: that we’re rubbish, talentless.”

And there’s the rub. The very people who need admiration from the internet are often the ones least able to cope with the slurry that inevitably comes with it. The new media is a blunt instrument populated by both the fair and the vile and it makes a bonfire of all our vanities. Unless we can develop skin as thick as a rhino’s bunions, then we’re really better off just looking away.

* I do realise that the wordplay here doesn’t strictly work, but it’s just a joke. Please don’t write in to Sally Baker’s Feedback as my ego can’t take it.

Times Recommends

• Fragility always gets my sympathy vote
• Double it and you get the real jobless total
• Has al-Megrahi paid his council tax?