Hippy, purple hair, piercing, ..., facebook? How to rebell

Inspired by some discussion on the implication of information sharing at AMI2011 I wanted to put this up for discussion here...

If you read newspapers you find a lot of people have major concerns about how young people are using social networks, and especially facebook. I believe many of them are well meaning when the speculate about the lasting damage young people do to themselves if the post too much too openly. Some of the concerns I share but I think there is another dimension to it, too.

Being young (e.g. teenager) is not about being sensible, reasonable, rational - it is about exploring the world and rebelling. Probably most of us looked for way to provoke reactions from parents and society in this phase of live. Some examples to remember... Hippies and sex in 70’s, green, blue, red and orange hair in the 80’s, in then in 90’s it was piercing. Now what can the young people do today? Granny had a skirt that was really short; parents had piercings in places where you don't want to think about…. It is easy - sharing a picture on facebook where you wear to little or nothing - and you get all the reactions. Especially you will get the same reaction that has been around for many decades (and your parent and grandparents got, too): if you do this no one will ever give you a job ;-)

I don't want to deny the risks of sharing information online, but I think we should analyze things a bit more deeply ...