Universities have become so paranoid about cheating on exams that they’ve started buying software that scans test-taking students’ faces, follows what they’re doing on the web, and records audio. Now the students who find themselves trapped in this dismal panopticon are wondering what the software company is doing with their data.

What were you doing this day a year ago? Thanks to your obsessive use of Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and/or Instagram, this information can now be mined in the blink of an eye. Sadly, the answer will probably be depressing.

Hey, can you spare a hundred bucks for my animé about the forces of Satan? Oh wait, no, actually how about $75 for my low-noise waterproof USB vibrator? Or maybe like $10 for my buddy's interactive ebook and film on psychedelic medicine? How about a $1 pocket grill investment? These annoying pitches all represent actual things—actual projects on Kickstarter, favored venue of filthy broke ass hippies the world over. There is just way, way too much of this shit.

Sometimes Rebecca likes to type Clark's email address into her Gmail search box, pulling up hundreds of old messages and chats, laughs and apologies, acute pain and faint hope. What she shares of this trove is worth reading. [Image: marema/Shutterstock]

Here's a collage of the depressing quotes from 1,000 students around the world who were asked to quit the internet and all media for a day as part of a University of Maryland study. They became depressed, they became anguished — and they became disgusted with their own dependency.

If you consider the Internet a drug, then we live in a world of addicts. A new study of 1,000 students around the world found that those who gave up the Internet felt intense withdrawal symptoms within 24 hours.