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Do you have memories from adolescence you\\u2019d rather forget? Previously, that choice \\u2014 whether to open up that embarrassing high school yearbook or keep it firmly closed \\u2014 generally rested in your hands. But for kids growing up in today\\u2019s social media landscape, the digital footprint they (or their parents) create can immortalize childhood and its growing pains forever.

Kate Eichhorn, a professor of culture and media at The New School and author of The End of Forgetting, has researched how the permanence of social media chips away at our \\u201cagency over traces of the past.\\u201d What happens when a digital record won\\u2019t allow you to forget? Or when the digital breadcrumbs we create as minors are interpreted as an unshakable portrait of who we are in adulthood? According to Eichhorn, there can sometimes be painful consequences when young people grow up.