I take it you haven't heard that exact thing from parents or the sarcasm didn't make it through the wires.
Yes, the reason is the kid doesn't have to worry about paying for it when it breaks, so they don't care.
Yes, the reason is the kid doesn't have to worry about paying for it when it breaks, so they don't care.
Informing my mom that she should just try stuff out on her Mac b/c she isn't going to break stuff was huge to help her get over her fear that she's going to click a wrong button and break something on a very expensive device.
[This doesn't address the issue of malware, of course, which is (in a sense) "breaking" your security by clicking a link]
Either way, kids don't care yet and just plow on doing whatever.
I had the same issue with my mom, it became better when I told her that the computer will ask before doing something irreversal (and even then it might be fixable), and I will only help her after she thinks she broke it.
While I was happily taking apart the OS as a kid. The only thing that really broke was a game that switched to US layout after I checked it out in a hex editor. (The Sims, you can read the comments in the code, quite neat. :) )