O Internet, what a double-edged sword thou art....
Positive sides of the Internet for programmers
Groups like this can exist!
A lot of us moved beyond childhood hijinks into "real programming" thanks in no small part to the help of online organizations like TeenProgrammersUnite. We made lots of friends while learning absolutely useful programming skills and working to produce real software.
Free information
There are scads and scads of resources available on the Internet for programmers. You can find an article on pretty much anything or the answer to most any question with a minimum of search engine work.
Free software
There's no reason ever to buy a development tool again. You aren't limited to the version of QBasic that came installed on your computer!
Negative sides of the Internet for programmers
The allure of web development
"Kids these days" are growing up with the World Wide Web dominated Internet. Many of those who would have learned programming in less connected times choose to learn web design instead. Some of them turn to web development and stay there for the rest of their programming careers. Web programming is still programming, but it's a very limited area, and most of the problems to solve in it are simple and don't require technical creativity compared to programming and ComputerScience overall. Someone who starts in web design can be lulled into a false sense of having mastered everything he wants to master about programming. Instead of having reached the pinnacle of ability, he is actually lolling around in a self-congratulatory trap and not learning the basic and widely applicable logical thinking skills that traditional programming requires.
High expectations
In the GoodOldDays, we had no experiences with fancy graphics of any kinds, let alone the massive interactive blob that is the WWW, so we were fine with writing text-based programs to learn the basics of coding. Today, people approaching programming for the first time want to see something flashy right away and will often skip the most important stages of learning. It's problem solving that's at the heart of programming, not frame rate.
Distraction
Many of us would sit in front of our computers programming for hours in the GoodOldDays. There wasn't much else to do besides play the low-tech games of the day. Today, there is the Internet, with distracting web pages, chat, and so forth. Even programming related chat channels like our own IrcChannel can end up doing more harm than good, by distracting participants from writing some actual code.