"The fact that the kids employer was able to find this evidence online shows how grossly big brother our world has become suggesting my generation really doesn't have it great at all. We are being watched with a hawk eye by generations"

You're not seriously implying that showing off pics of you drunk in drag on a day you skipped work on FaceBook is a job requirement? No one forced him to do that. The Big Brother reference is a LITTLE dramatic.

Funny and true story. I've only just turned 29, so I'm very nearly between generation X and Y. But the difference between people just a few years older than me and just a few years younger is pretty stark and noticeable. When I go back and try to look up people who were two years or so ahead of me in high school on a site like MySpace or FaceBook, they almost unerringly don't have one. They got into the professional world and the hectic pace of a 9-5 adult life before those sorts of sites gained widespread popularity, and never made time for them. People just a few years younger than me? They LIVE on those things.

What also surprises me is that, even though we grew up with the internet too, we still maintained relatively private lives. Perhaps not as private as our parents would have approved of, but when I look at the details I'm able to read on the typical 18-26 year old's social networking page, I'm often pretty shocked. Do you really think this is information appropriate to post publicly on the internet? What if you're up for an important position one day? What if you want to be elected to an office one day? Leaving pictures of you drunk and groping women at some party on a public site with your real life name on it doesn't seem like it can have any positive benefit on your life in the big picture.

I think it's an "it's all about the me" generation. Much moreso than older people always said about people my age. At 16, 18, 20, 22, I feel like I always knew more about the world and what had come before than the people younger. I knew my parents' music. I knew what politicians in the 70's had done. I knew what the Berlin Wall was even though it fell when I was under 10 years old. These days? I run into 20 somethings who haven't ever heard a Beatles song all the way through. Or know who CCR is. If it's not part of the right-now-as-it-applies-to-you (or Paris Hilton) media, it's not worth knowing, or discussed, apparently.

I know there are a lot of exceptions. But it has been my experience that the newer generation was vastly more insulated than the older generation was, in terms of really just not being very aware of much outside of them, people their own age, and the culture enveloping them.