David’s Reviews > Ordinary: Sustainable Faith in a Radical, Restless World > Status Update

“If anything, younger generations are even more habituated to immediate gratification than their parents and grandparents. This is due less to their conscious choices than to social practices that have made them what they are — practices that reshape all of us in profound ways.”

In his bestseller, The Shallows, Nicholas Carr argues that in the Internet age we are losing our capacity for deep thinking, reading, and conversation. Instead of deep sea divers, he says, we jet ski on a sea of words and especially images.

Ablow warns, "Watch for an epidemic of depression and suicidality, not to mention homicidality, as the real self-loathing and hatred of others that lies beneath all this narcissism rises to the surface."

“We can scour the Web for bits and pieces of the identity that we are crafting for ourselves and the accessories that we think will help us pull it off. The choices are endless— and, therefore, both overwhelming and anxiety-producing.”