As someone who grew up in the 90s as kid and IRC (and ICQ, and chats) I disagree. The first time I used IRC I used mIRC. It was in 1997. It asked for my real n

As someone who grew up in the 90s as kid and IRC (and ICQ, and chats) I disagree. The first time I used IRC I used mIRC. It was in 1997. It asked for my real name. I filled it in. Fast forward a few days, I get into an argument with someone, and they call me by my real name. I was flabbergasted. How do they know my name? I never knew that the real name was shared with IRC networks; I assumed it was shared with mIRC only. I had the same on ICQ, including my phone number, which was once abused to stalk me. Did I learn from this? Hell yes, I got more private and careful. And it isn't as if I already wasn't. I never gave people my hometown or last name. Heck, I met strange people who wanted to cyber on a web chat when I was 14 years old. But I never gave them my PII (oh and I found it more funny than that it got me horny as I could not take it serious). Only thing was my first name which is a common one. My mistake was to trust the software. The reason I disagree is the following: in the 90s I did not have a webcam or camera. I had a mic but it was not connected 24/7, and I could not use it to make a phone call. I did not even have my own cellphone yet, let alone a smartphone. I did have a walkman and discman, I'll admit that, but I don't see how such devices were harmful. Nowadays teenagers have smartphones, and they willfully share personal information with the Internet; that is, with companies, with the government (as a result of that), and with strangers and family & friends alike. Because of the snowball/network effect, many of them are being on these networks (Facebook, Snapchat, etc). The papertrail / records are more permanent than ever before. And it isn't just sex-related. It is also bullying-related ie. cyberbullying, making videos of bullying and putting it on YouTube. The point is, we created a monster. The monster is called data.