You are right, it is certainly quite a bit different. I'm not sure how material the differences are though. For what it's worth, I had access to BBS' prior to

You are right, it is certainly quite a bit different. I'm not sure how material the differences are though. For what it's worth, I had access to BBS' prior to that and had already enjoyed discussing things with adults as an equal before getting a dialup account on a local university mainframe. Everything was done through a shell account, telnet and gopher and similar. I mean, I was still able to quite easily find myself to alt.binaries.tasteless and find extreme porn and all that sort of stuff. Those things like Facebook and such that are designed to be addictive are only addictive to the types of people who find that kind of thing alluring. People who seek social validation whether than evaluating themselves for themselves can not be protected from that tendency. And that is, whether we like it or not, the foundation of modern society. It is an inevitable consequence that such people will spend their lives drowned in neurotic worry. It's not particularly new, and the systems that make engaging in it so easy also make leaving that sort of thinking behind if a person wishes to do so. Ultimately, though, consider the kid. If the kid is a social butterfly, what effect is withholding tech from them going to have? They're going to be made bitter, probably be significantly sidelined in their social circles - the exact place they derive every ounce of their self worth. It wouldn't exactly be a pretty alternative.