Teenagers lead privileged lives compared with previous generations, but money doesn't necessarily bring them happiness, writes novelist, Cambridge student and former Fair Cityactress Ruth Gilligan
The Celtic Tiger cubs, Generation Text, even the bright new future for a growing Ireland. These are just some of the titles bestowed on my fellow teenagers and me. People are always trying to put us in a box. They rarely ask one simple question, though: are we happy? Is the generation of the internet, boob jobs and reality TV content with life and with itself? And if not, why not?
I am a very happy 19-year-old, and most of my friends are happy, too. But open any newspaper or watch any prime-time special about teenagers in Ireland and "we" will be drunkenly puking in the streets, sleeping with anything and everything in sight and causing adults to wince. But is this an accurate representation of the youth of today or are we again being labelled? Will there be a point when people my age look at all this bad press, see how people perceive us and say to themselves, well, if that's all they think of me, maybe I'll play up to that image.
Add to that the image projected by the scantily clad singers and the weight-obsessed celebrities we read about morning, noon and night. Peer pressure has entered a new realm in the past decade, and now we have come to believe that anorexic, drug-taking, "famous" bimbos are our peers it's hardly surprising that we are experiencing more and more problems.
If only it was as simple as the old a cappella song Don't Worry Be Happy. But we all know that, were it to be rereleased, it would probably be sexed up into a thumping rave tune, accompanied by a video resembling an orgy, and suddenly "happiness" would become a much more complicated notion to define.
If we complain about anything, however, we are plagued by admonishments beginning with "Back in my day", followed by a long list of the social and economic luxuries we enjoy. But these moralisers must also remember that, back in their day, the rate of problems such as suicide and eating disorders wasn't a patch on the shocking levels they have reached today. Everyone has been affected, directly or indirectly, by issues such as these, so does this seem like a happy generation? Yes, we have more money, and, yes, we have more technology, but these are mere substitutes for our fundamental needs as young adults.
For, beyond the factors that affect our happiness, it is becoming increasingly difficult to determine how, exactly, this generation defines happiness. I have friends in Cambridge - all intelligent people - who have been brainwashed into thinking that money is the sole source of joy and that only once they are rich will they be happy. This is, of course, an extremely bleak notion - and a perfect example of our economic success altering the building blocks of human nature.
I asked one friend why he thought this way - why he was so heartless as to think that money was the be-all and end-all, and why he didn't think that friends and family were the real keys to a life of contentment. He simply replied: "I suppose it's because of my dad." He said his father had walked out on his family on Christmas Day nearly 10 years ago. He rarely hears from him any more; he just receives a monthly cheque in the post. So is that what replaces a parent? Twelve bank lodgments a year and it's as if Daddy has never left? With divorce now legal in Ireland and the rate on the rise, people need to think about how much of an effect this is having on the children involved and, above all, on their happiness.
Another change is that women are now working outside the home more and more. Although it is brilliant that they have the opportunity to do so, an empty house, or an unrelated nanny running the show, isn't always our idea of a happy home.
Because all we want is time. Sure, money buys us nice things, but if this were a MasterCard ad and you were trying to estimate the value of spending some quality time with your parents, and of knowing that they are always there for you, the answer would be "priceless". So it is harder and harder to work out what we define happiness as.
A smile to us conjures up thoughts of €1,000 braces and expensive bleach treatments, to make our pearly whites as dazzling as the stars', but when is a smile just a smile? In one of their songs The Killers ask us to "smile like you mean it", but do we even know how to any more?
My idea of happiness was going away to university in a different country but still popping back to Ireland and maintaining my relationships at home. And who do I have to thank for making this double life possible? Low-fare airlines, of course - the "bus down the road" of my generation.
I will gladly accept that once we work through the complications and pressures of our modern lives and figure out what makes us happy, it is easier to execute.
So these perks aid, but do not replace, happiness.
The world has changed but joy has not, and Ireland needs to be as careful now as ever to help its youth to be happy. Money is no substitute - it is only a temporary distraction, for whether we are living in the 21st or any other century, teenagers will always need love, care and support to flourish and embrace the changing world around us.
Happiness is so much more than a website, a pop tune or a designer-clothing brand, and we need to realise that the more advanced this planet becomes, the more we might forget about the basics when, really, they are the things that make us smile, and smile like we mean it.
Ruth Gilligan's second novel, Somewhere in Between, is published by Hodder Headline, £11.99 in UK