Slack could be an alternative. Not sure if teens are used to that though? Perhaps Matrix could be another alternative, but the UX there can be quite confusing IMHO.
I was 14-15 in 2004-2005. My drug of choice was the never-ending 24/7 user-led trivia game (with "name the song/artist" questions on voice chat) in the Trivia Madness!:1 room on Yahoo Chat, and they all thought I was an adult for like a year, until it came up organically. It was funny seeing them all shocked and whatnot, but I can't say there's much to gain from letting people know you're 14 on the internet. They're not going to be all like, "Oh, well, I guess 14-year-olds aren't always total morons, huh?" They're just going to start treating you like you're half a moron.
So I think that if they're doing it right, then ideally we don't notice.
I mean, as a 13 year old I tried to figure out anti-aliasing, but my conclusion was completely different to the reality.
Even as a not-very-educated person, by the time I was a teenager, I learned a lot by reading Slashdot, PCGamer, Tom's Hardware, CNet, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, Britannica, Encarta, Wikipedia, and the such. I was also involved in various BBSes, IRC, Usenet, MUDs, etc., and exposed to all the violence, sex, and general depravity that was the 90s-2000s internet. I learned a lot that way... for better or worse, lol. Definitely stumbled upon a few scarring videos on Napster, purposefully mislabeled as popular music videos...
I'd never want to shield a teenager from all that freeform learning. Or from the environments where they could anonymously participate as equals with other adults (or unknown persons). HN counts too... I have no idea whether you're a 30-year-old man, a 90-year-old grandma, or a 4-month-old AI puppy. Sometimes it's nice to not know and to just be able to focus on the topic at hand.
But then again, heh, I didn't exactly grow up to be the most stable or balanced adult... maybe there IS a reason to keep them protected... shrug.
I guess hn is suitable for teenagers as well.
