@The Fuzzy Wotnot
"You need to be aware that everything you do online gets stored, will effect your future, remember it will be stored quite often, for a very long, long time."
::shrugs:: My bored ramblings on Usenet from before the Great Renaming have never been linked to my RealLife[tm], so far as I know (you can find me on DejaGoo if you know where to look) ... and there were a LOT fewer people online back then. These days, I babble here when I'm in the office waiting for a phone call, or the Vet or farrier to show up, or whatever. I know ElReg keeps what I type around indefinitely, but I don't really care. It's not like I use my name, phone number, social security, banking, etc.
"Additionally be aware that any action you take will often morph into a dozen other forms far faster than you could possibly imagine. Those naughty holiday snaps, quickly end up in some YouTube compilation with suitable audio soundtrack!"
Those naughty snaps are on an air-gapped machine with an encrypted file system. The ONLY snaps I have online are a handful of photos of my show dogs (for the benefit of the breeders), and a couple pics of my sourdough bread that I put up for the folks at BreadAlone in New York (the wife & I toured the bakery in the Catskills when we lived in New Jersey, and the wife of the owner gave us some of their starter ... New York sourdough, in Sonoma, CA!).
"These are things we are only just beginning to learn about this wonderful medium, it needs respect."
What do you mean "just beginning to learn"? We knew about potential privacy issues before TCP/IP was invented. Take a look at the format of /etc/passwd ... which fields are mandatory, and which are optional? Why? For extra credit, what is ".nofinger" supposed to do? Does it always work? What is a better option?
"However this first generation making the most use of "da net", having never known a time when it wasn't there, I feel are damaging their futures beyond repair, we may have created a "damaged test" generation that no one will want nor trust..."
I do my best to try to educate. I suspect that over 50% aren't educable. The future is unknown.