Look around is what I do. I had lots of friends, in my youth, that were shielded from anything and everything that their parents would consider harmful to their psyche, and almost everyone of them has some kind of addiction to some form of what they were shielded from. One has still not gotten over the strip club thing (going on ten years), I on the other hand was intrigued for a few months then got over it. Another is on his second marriage and can't see a pretty girl and not hit on her, and being a good looking guy assures him of a fresh catch pretty much every time he wants "it". He is the first to admit his addiction to sex. Another turned to drugs as soon as he got away from his parents and I only see him very rarely and it's not pretty. All three have alcohol problems.
My mother and father never really shielded me from anything, and I have avoided all of those pitfalls. I'm not saying it is good to force negative thoughts and images on your children, in fact I'm sure that WOULD be even MORE harmful than shielding them. But if a child senses he is being kept from something, I have observed that that child will seek out those things at the earliest opportunity, and have a much harder time getting over their dabble in the dark side.
I've also noticed that the best Christians, I've come in contact with, are the people that haven't been brought up as practicing Christians, lived the dark side and have seen the error of their ways, sought out Jesus and were born again. The people that were raised in a strict religious household are the one's who sneak/cheat around on their wives and still call themselves Christians.
That's what I see when I "look around".
Are you a parent? (yes, I am) BuhBye.
Yes, I am a parent of a daughter (16) and son (12).
Their mother deserves almost all the credit for who they are. She has "controlled" what they are allowed to see on TV for years, and has explained why some channels and programs are off-limits. Now the don't even think about channel-surfing (because they understand why they should avoid a lot of what's on). They certainly know evil is out there, and hear plenty of foul language from other kids at our supposedly all-American junior-high and high schools. They can only access the Internet in a "common" area. They aren't shielded because they're told what's out there and why a lot of it is bad. They (usually) trust that their mother is looking out for their best interests.
My daughter has independently concluded that she doesn't want to live away from home during at least the first couple years of college because she has seen what has happened to a lot of kids who have gone away and ruined themselves. I don't have a problem with that; it strikes me as a pretty mature decision.
Knock on a ton of wood, they're wonderful kids. The disagreement I have with your "it turned out OK" approach is that I don't think kids can afford to "dabble with the dark side" any more; they have to learn to stay away from it (and internalize why they're staying away, not just avoid it out of fear of parents, although fear isn't all bad). It's a LOT darker, scarier, and more dangerous, and percentage of kids who don't return from the dark side, or come back severely damaged, is unacceptably high.