Page 1124 - Wordsmith A Guide to College Writing

London. “Now it feels completely natural to put photos up and have
various profiles on different sites. But still, I think people are quite wary

about what they put online.”

By contrast, Bryony, a 15-year-old Facebooker in Hampshire, said: 17

“I don’t think people are worried about it. When you are writing on

Facebook, you are caught up in it and don’t think about privacy.”

One of her friends, Peter, said: “I’m not really concerned—except a 18

little if my future boss finds out what it [his Facebook profile] was like.

But it would also be cool looking back on it when I was 60.”

Or maybe not. The follies of youth are a necessary rite of passage, 19
says Turkle, and used to be easily left to fade; now they may stick

around forever.

“Adolescents need to fall in and out of love with people and ideas,” 20

said Turkle, whose forthcoming book Alone Together examines
friendships in the digital age. “The internet is a rich ground for working

through identity. But that does not easily mesh with a life that

generates its own electronic shadow.”

In other words, your youthful mistakes may remain forever on a 21
computer server and come back to haunt you.

Like many social network users, Sophie, another friend in the 22

Hampshire group, takes comfort from Facebook’s privacy settings.