I read an interesting article the other day about the current generation of high-school and college students. While benefitting greatly from social networking and all sorts of other inventions designed to keep people connected, they also are apparently the "most unhappy" generation according to some sort of statistical finding or survey or something.

It makes sense, in a way. All those experiences you DON'T want to remain connected to are made permanent, from the jackass who beat your lunch money out of you to the clique that never accepted you to those crushes that ignored you. At the bare minimum, all those people have online avatars/profiles, and often pictures, letting you know they are happy somewhere living life and couldn't care less about their violations years ago. At the worst, detailed descriptions of events gone awry are out there for permanent public consumption via search engine.

Its all there, on the internet, somewhere. There isn't any running away anymore and forgetting about all that stuff in order to start over.

So what happens? Insecure 20-somethings either continue down that vicious cycle of failure and self-doubt and get lost in it all, or get used to the new internet-based transparency we live in now. There's not a whole lot of middle ground. You either conquer it mentally or it just beats you down.

The reality is that we're in the infancy of this entire phenomenon. The further we get into the internet age, and particularly with more and more bandwidth available to even the poorest of Americans, we'll start getting to the point where every single bad decision a person makes will be catalogued and archived somewhere on the internet. Perhaps an enemy will blog about it. Or somebody will post a comment on your "wall" about it.

And we wonder why antidepressants are consumed like candy. We can't ignore the impact of the internet, and its ability to often record the past in an unfavorable light, on the human psyche.

I can't imagine what it must be like to be a high schooler right now. I mean, seriously. Fail to make first chair in band? Everybody's blogging about how much you suck. Have the girl reject you when you ask her to the dance? Now there's a website out there about it.

Either the whispers on the 'net become the impetus behind positive change, or they become deafening and paralyzing. Its a fascinating thing to think about, and a struggle I see with myself and others on a daily basis.