In her book American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers, researcher Mary Jo Sales reports a conversation with a teenage girl at a mall in LA who told her, "Social media is destroying our lives." Sales told her, "So why don't you go off it?" Nancy replied. "Seems reasonable, doesn't it? If something is destroying you, let it go. Smash it. Get rid of it." The girl's response was instant: "Because then we would have no life."

Trevin Wax comments: "If I were to cast that conversation in spiritual terms, I'd put it this way: My idol is destroying me, but if I smash my idol, then I disappear."