Social media has completely transformed the way we communicate in the 21st century.

No matter where we find ourselves around campus, we almost always see people texting or talking on the phone. It has become protocol when we meet someone to go home (or get on our BlackBerry or iPhone) and add him or her as a friend on Facebook. When something interesting happens, we feel the need to share it with our followers on Twitter (follow me at @austingaddis).

If we happen to catch something funny on video, we upload it to YouTube. If we’re bored or procrastinating studying for that big test we have in the morning, we can find ourselves spending hours on message boards like Texts From Last Night, Total Frat Move, FML, etc.

It seems that social media plays a major role in nearly every aspect of our lives. It has changed the way that we view our relationships with friends, family and even significant others. A commercial for a matchmaking website states that one in every five relationships now starts online.

While social media can be a great tool for managing our social lives, it also has a dark side that has literally driven people to death – most recently at a college campus. Last month, Tyler Clementi, a student at Rutgers, committed suicide by jumping off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate broadcasted his sexual encounters with another male on the Internet.

The roommate also posted a tweet detailing his intentions to post the encounters online again. Prior to his suicide, Clementi posted his suicidal intentions as his Facebook status.

This story has sent shockwaves through the media and higher education communities. The tragedy shows how much of a role that media plays in the self-confidence of young people. This should give us an opportunity to step back and think about the power and privacy that we forfeit by the ever-advancing and ever-invasive social media.

While many of us have Facebook pictures of a keg stand from last weekend’s party or crazy times on Bourbon Street (that we de-tagged, of course), text messages, videos and tweets floating around in cyberspace that we hope do not come back to bite us in the real world, the scary reality is that they probably will. Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently suggested that our generation should change our names in the future in order to escape our Google-able past.

Our generation has an addiction to social media. Researchers have monitored brain activity of young adults and have found that when we receive a text message, Facebook post or someone mentions us in a tweet, our brain releases the pleasure hormone dopamine. Some researchers have even said that while receiving or sending a text message, our brain activity models an addict’s brain while using heroin. Simply put, social media is physically addicting.

Social media can be a fun and useful way to expand our social life and it can also lead to our downfall, if we are not careful. As technology continues to evolve, online privacy will continue to become more of an oxymoron. We must all be conscious of the fact that whatever we say, post, tweet or upload on the Internet is there for good.

Austin Gaddis is a sophomore majoring in public relations and communication studies. His column runs bi-weekly on Fridays.