The reader is thrust into the inner worlds of breathless anticipation, giddy reeling, blurred reality, drawn-out ennui, and unstaunchable rages with which teens are blessed and afflicted.
Its opposite is a "bleeding edge technology" -- technology that is so far ahead of the cutting edge of consumer acceptance that the project hemorrhages money and resources in an unstaunchable flow.
For example, when Carl was indicted at the beginning of the Cold War (January 1947), the household was in danger of being drowned by his mother's seemingly unstaunchable tears.