Flutterby™! : Youthful indiscretions

Linking to this rather idiotic SFGate article on the hidden costs of social networking because I was moved to comment on that site, and I figured I should reproduce it here.

I was recently appointed to a minor public committee, and mentioned this on various social networking sites, whereupon an acquaintance remarked "OMG, they published all that information about you!" (like phone number and contact address). Yeah, and before the Internet we had these things called the "white pages" where you could look up information about me.

We've become *way* too over sensitive about personal information flowing around. It's always been flowing around. I was a dork and an outcast in high school, and even *I* was aware of what got developed on the sly in the school B&W photo lab. Pretending that somehow life is different now is just stupid. The real thing we should address is why society at large has a problem with teenagers being teenagers. Frankly, the lack of youthful indiscretions should have more of a negative impact on your career than the existence of them.