Millennials are happier than ever to connect with strangers online, despite the risk of being duped. Caitlin Dickson on why we’re wired to trust too easily.

"My generation grew up with the Internet, spending formative years connecting with others online—first friends, then, increasingly, strangers. We’ve gotten used to sharing intimate details of our lives alongside our real names and photos. We seek friends, professional contacts, and dates in the same way we look for restaurants or concert tickets. A few years ago, our parents might have been worried that this fluency in digital communication would leave us somehow stunted, hiding behind the veil of an online persona. But the opposite appears to be true—millennials are only too eager to share their lives with people they don’t even know. Have we become too naive for our own good?

When did we let our guard down? How did we evolve from the days of AOL, with its inscrutable user names and anonymous chat rooms, to sharing our age, sex, location, and damn near everything else about ourselves—and a geo-location tag to boot—with perfect strangers?"

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