By: Lexi Severini

I remember the first time I was introduced to a desktop: It was 1995, I was eight and the Macintosh Classic that sat before me might as well have been Devon Sawa, adorned with a candy necklace and a mysterious smile – because, boy, was I intrigued. Aside from my early onset attraction to the opposite sex, I was also a dangerously curious kid who wanted desperately to unearth the intricacies of this foreign device.

With the office secretary’s assistance, we got it turned on and as I waited for it to boot up, thoughts of my next great (mediocre) literary masterpiece (one pager at best) swirled in my head. Would Jem – the perpetual protagonist in all of my stories – finally break up with Jake or become cheer captain? Oh elementary school problems, what I wouldn’t do to swap young adult problems with you.

It wasn’t long before I was typing away, in a world of my own, completely sold on the whole concept. I know hindsight is 20/20, but I still feel bad that I didn’t give the old office typewriter a proper goodbye. After all, she’d been a dear friend to me.

It’s pretty wild to think how far technology has come since I was eight. Nowadays, kids have an unsettling amount of access to the Internet and its vast nooks and crannies. Until Wednesday, Facebook’s privacy settings kept underage teens out of the watchful eye of the mega-popular social networking site’s general public.

However, now teens between 13 and 17 can opt to share their content publicly - not just with friends. This new option is keeping parents, caretakers and educators alike up at night. Sure, the new settings are such that a child between those ages would have to manually make the choice to share with a larger audience - but let’s not fool ourselves, folks. For most kids, the only thing better than five likes is five hundred.

So what does this mean for your son, daughter, nephew, or little sister?

Well, it means that advertisers, friends of friends and that 40+ year-old gentleman - with unkempt facial hair and a look of questionable intention on his face - could have Stevie’s post, picture or status update in their newsfeeds. But with great power comes great responsibility and Facebook knows that. That’s why Facebook now prompts those looking to change their settings to read about what exactly it means to have a public profile. At the most, it could be the reason teens change their minds and keep their info private. At the least, it’s an effort by Facebook to educate their young users on the impact of making their content public.

But before you uproot your child from her desk chair and lock her away in a tower, consider this: a recent Pew Research study shows that 51% of teenage users are concerned with sharing too much personal information via technology.

It’s true that kids say the darndest things and now, everyone will see that. For the time being though, we’re not jumping to any conclusions about how this will impact the younger generation of Facebook users, but we’re certainly keeping our eyes and ears opened. Stay tuned.