Quote, unquote: on the importance of carrying on the conversation

"I think it's still within our power — before social media and the internet completely slice our brains into tiny little packets of jelly that are only good for reading 40 words at a time and assimilating tiny bits of information — to realize that we're losing something. And that it's important to step back — to know ourselves better, to know the people around us better."

-- Novelist Gary Shteyngart, quoted by in an article on CBC.ca about his novel Super Sad, a satire about a world falling apart, where attention spans are almost nonexistent, at least in part because of the imperative of social media and online consumerism.