Along with digital cameras, phones, text messages, email, etc.....at least when I was young, if you wrote horrible things, you could burn the paper it was on and no one would be the wiser. Unless you shared it with another person.
*totters away on cane* 
Welcome Shamrock. Sorry for the rant.
Umm, what exactly do you all think happens on a myspace page that one would care. Printing pictures of the leaves in fall and sending a message to my friends asking how life is is hardly something I feel I need to burn. 
Now if I posted naked pictures of myself or something, I can see your point, but I hardly think the net cares that I like the Jet song Cold Hard Bitch or that I have a fall themed page
Dixie, I thought you were a young whippersnapper 
Free is beyond hope 
but you 
The internet (and technology in general) have made what I call "brain vomit" commonplace. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure your fall leaves are lovely. 
I'm no Luddite. Not by any stretch of the imagination. I think it's great that some people use the internet for a creative outlet or communication. But it's too easy. No one thinks twice of blogging or posting about every.single.thought that enters their mind. It's like reading over the shoulder of a 16 year old girl who is furiously scribbling in her diary in gym class. Some things just don't need to be said aloud or posted in cyberspace. I don't care how "private" your settings are. It's out there. I may not darken the doors of social networking sites, but I've certainly seen the fallout that occurs when people put seemingly innocent thoughts/photos/etc...on display only to have it backfire down the road.
I'm not paranoid. I share photos and things with friends and family like I have with you guys here. Besides, doesn't the fact that I basically have taken up residence here prove I'm a "whippersnapper" who loves the internet?
I'm just repelled at how much the younger generation takes it for granted. I can remember a time when people didn't have instant access to technology and you had to actually stop and think about what you were going to say (or post in today's language). About the worst you could do was scream at someone over the phone or on their answering machine. Now? You can upload your innermost thoughts in a nanosecond. Not always a good thing.
Sorry, I'm ranting. We're talking about this in our home and family right now and trying to instill these "stop and think" lessons into our child so we don't face drama later.
You are right, they do take it for granted. That said I don't blog or post compromising pictures of myself for my friends and when I say 'my friends' I don't mean internet, myspace sense of friends, I mean these are real flesh and blood people that I know from my real life. What I post to them is to me no different then sending the same thing in an email, this just makes it far easier since they are in one place. I guess I just like knowing where they are since with the moving I've done, I lost touch. It's hard to explain unless someone knows how transient my life has been why that is so important for me and why myspace is so useful for me for that purpose.
Blogging though I don't do so my innermost feelings still sit right where they originated.
And free, I'm quite certain a talented IT guy could trace you if he wanted. Using any technology makes you vulnerable so we all take calculated risks knowing that.
Dixie, I'm buying you some sensible shoes pronto
