What is reality with using multiple accounts?

[thomapa1]

In a perfect world, I would like to have a separate account for me, wife, kid a (16 years old) and kid b (14 years old)...where I assume each would have their own environment (mail, chat, access to storage (worksheets, homework).
In the PC world, it ended up being pretty cumbersome resulting in lots of questions "I can't get to x" "mine doesn't look the same as yours" ....also when I tried to restrict some access for the kids in the PC world - it was either too restrictive or they found a way around it anyway.

I am internally debating whether to have separate accounts or just go with a wide open - single account structure.

What has been your experience? pros and cons of each?

 

[spinnerlys]

Separate accounts are the way to go, as you each have one folder with all your files and preferences and they are inaccessible by the other users, despite being admin or not. Only the not enabled "root" user has access to all folders.

I only have two or three accounts on my Macs and I haven't had any problems, though I don't let children touch it.

Btw, you can set the accounts for your children to be "Standard" users, thus not able to do much harm or install any applications, that need access to system files. There is also the Parental Control panel, but it seems to get mixed reviews here.