And yet today students are perfectly willing to detail the minutiae of their lives on their online permanent record.
If everyone's skeletons are out in the open for everyone else to see, they're no longer skeletons.
What one social group considers a skeleton in their closet, another considers a badge of honor.
I benefitted from this, I'm into and have been into all sorts of things that would have socially stigmatized me 50 years ago. Meanwhile, someone else who is racist or beats their spouse or kids is likely to face social condemnation.
Times change, in this case, for the better.
I don't think that STD's, alcoholism, drug abuse or mental health issues are ever going to be considered badges of honour over the course of people's careers.
If you don't believe that the "delete" and "mark private" features of these online publishing things work, well there's a lot of juicy info there for the taking on tomorrow's public figures.
I don't think STDs and youthful alcoholism will be badges of honor, but I think there's an undercurrent of people feeling as if we all have baggage of one type or another. They're much more likely to be ruled out of public office for pictures of themselves wearing "race face" or date rape bragging or something.
I switched from skeletons to baggage for my clichés...