THE digital age has thrown up another instance of how your life can be determined by a few words typed in a few thoughtless moments and posted on the internet for all the world to see.

The latest example is the bust-up between barristers. Charlotte Proudman, a 27-year-old barrister, was incensed that fellow legal eagle Alexander Carter-Silk commented that he thought her photo on the networking site LinkedIn was “stunning”.

She outed his "sexist” comment on the internet, because she felt he had “objectified” her on a professional website.

It has provoked a fierce debate, with Proudman subsequently told on Twitter by solicitors that she won’t get any work from them in the future, and it has been revealed she has commented on men’s appearances on Facebook, although of course this is a social medium, as opposed to a professional one.

Meanwhile, it has also emerged that Carter-Silk posted a comment on a picture of his daughter that described her as “hot”.

Had Carter-Silk engaged his brain before flexing his fingers on his keyboard in either case? I doubt it.

Even though there have been a succession of cases where seemingly throwaway comments posted in an instant have landed some people in deep trouble, he still probably thinks, like many of us, of the internet as a harmless distraction, almost a toy.

But it clearly is not. A careless comment, a sarcastic tweet, a joke in bad taste, they can all cause trouble, especially since nuance and vocal inflexion is missing on screen. Often, too, context is deliberately omitted, particularly when the self-righteous want to get on their high horses about a perceived insult, slight or non-PC position.

It’s a particularly difficult minefield for the younger and older generations to negotiate, the younger because they are still learning about internet etiquette and, indeed, about everything in life, and the older, simply because they pre-date the internet.

This week, I have had to confiscate a smartphone from one of my children.

All three of them have been given mobile phones by us, their parents, for safety reasons but one child was caught misusing theirs, filming a sibling in their shared bedroom, footage that showed an entirely innocent few moments of talking, and posting it on Instagram. It raised issues of privacy: the right of a child to be private in their own home and, equally important, their right not to have a few seconds of their life caught on camera without their permission and then posted on the internet despite their protestations.

Needless to say, the “offender” was dealt with appropriately and the issues explained – but it clearly demonstrates a dangerous aspect of the internet. Unless the victim in this instance had told us about the filming and Instagram posting, we would never have known, and so our “offender” may have continued to film a reluctant sibling and make private moments most public – without understanding the potential consequences. Luckily, we, his parents, can foresee how one thing can lead to another.

One case I know of, a young man of 20, had malicious rumours about him posted on the internet by the spiteful friends of an ex-girlfriend, and it has just come back to haunt him, almost ruining his current relationship.

It could easily come back to haunt him again in the future – but he has no control over it.

He is in despair that the actions of people he barely knew a few years ago can have such potential long-reaching consequences in his life. Our family “offender” was glum and grim when the phone was confiscated, to be replaced by one of those very basic £10 mobiles with limited functions. But we will ensure the lesson is learnt. The off button has never looked so tempting.

How refreshing that new Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn gave a victory speech that was variously described as “rambling”, “incoherent” and by one columnist as “the worst speech I’ve ever seen by a senior British politician”.

Fantastic! A real politician, rather than a robot.

A politician who has not had every original word, thought and idea rehearsed out of him by spin doctors and speech writers.

A man of conviction, someone who stands by his beliefs, even if we don’t agree with him, and who won’t waver in the face of opposition just because it’s politically expedient. Corbyn has been junked as having old-fashioned ideas that would have suited the 1980s rather than 2015 – but I think a throwback is just what we need. our stale political scene needs to inject a bit of life back into it.

The current generation of smooth career politicians groomed to display less emotion than the Chancellor’s red box leaves me cold - so perhaps if Corbyn does bring the passion back into politics, it will rouse the apathetic 30-odd percent of the electorate who didn’t bother to vote back in May.