If you give your attention mostly to TikTok and mostly to Netflix and mostly to this kind of

digital junk food out there, like you are going to be formed in a certain way.

But if you give your attention to the more transcendental sources of wisdom and truth,

you give your attention chiefly, of course, to God.

And that's one of the things that's so critical for Christians in this whole conversation.

Today I'm speaking with Brett McCracken and Ivan Mesa.

Brett serves as a senior editor and Ivan Mesa as editorial director for the gospel coalition.

They co-edited the new book, Scrolling Ourselves to Death, reclaiming life in a digital age from

Crossway. Brett, Ivan, thanks so much for joining me today on the Crossway podcast.

Thanks for having us. Good to see you. So in 1985, Neil Postman famously published a book called Amusing Ourselves to

Death. And that book is pretty foundational to the book that you two served as editors on,

worked with a number of contributors on different chapters. And it even was the inspiration for the title

of your book, scrolling ourselves to death.

So I wonder, Brett, could you summarize what Postman was saying?

What was his main thesis in that book?

And how did some of his ideas influence what you two are trying to do with this new book?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, Neil Postman was broadly just a critic of media and technology, kind of one of the

leading voices in that genre in the 20th century, kind of an air apparent to Marshall McLuhan

in many ways who famously coined the phrase, the medium is the message, to make the point that

when we think about communication and the ways that ideas are

discussed and all of that, the medium matters. So the medium of technology changes the messages

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