I’m now twenty minutes late for class, yeah, but I’m in for a beauti-
ful day. And the rest of my Facebook-friending, Internet-surfing generation is with me. ~
In September 1988, reggae musician Bobby McFerrin released a
spunky new track that surged in popularity. Titled “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” the song featured whistle-filled acoustics and an amiable, buttery melody. “Don’t worry!” Americans became fond of exclaiming, “Be happy!” The song captured a new American theory of happiness—happiness as denial of one’s troubles, and gratitude for what was at hand. Generation X, personified in Douglas Coupland’s books and films like Reality Bites, might have found happiness singing along with McFerrin. But in modern society, this leisurely contentment is rare. Instead, happiness in the 21st century is accompanied by an urgent self-absorption.
So how—and why—did the perception of happiness change?
Today, our world loves to chit chat. To our friends, we continually gush over the latest technological trends, styles, and appliances. Our fingers kiss buttons in a rapid-fire stream of clacking. Our eyes glaze over and spin like glinting CD discs. And around us, the chirp of computers, cell phones, and iPods never ceases. At the height of this social atmosphere lies my generation, Generation Y: the babies of the 1980s and 1990s. In a recent Newsweek article, author and physician Dr. Andrew Weil, the founder of the Spontaneous Happiness program, scorns our easy accessibility to the media: “Many people today spend much of their waking time surfing the Internet, texting and talking on mobile phones, attending to email, watching television, and being stimulated by other new media—experiences never available until now” (10). Needless to say, we live in a world peppered with distractions. As a result, Generation Y has grown up with a philosophy: to be heard and accepted in society, we must talk back. This need for constant communication has sparked a unique happy-state mentality in our generation. In order 18 Excellence in First-Year Writing 2012