Saturday, 23 October 2010

  • "I Thought You Said You Were Eighteen!": The Pros and Cons of Chat Rooms


    We all know that talk we get from our parents when we get our first computers "stay away from chat rooms". We are told that they are full of pedophiles and murderers. As an active user of a chatting site named teenspot.com, also having both experienced the good and bad sides of chat rooms, I have some insight into these kind of online activities. 

    Pros:

    • They are a good way to connect with people all around the world.
    • You can openly express your opinions.
    • Teaching people about your culture is a plus, as well as learning about others. 
    • Its possible to make wonderful long distance pen pals. 

    Cons:

    • People are not always what they seem.
    • Underage kids can enter adult chat rooms. 
    • As sad as it is, there are pedophiles in chat rooms.
    • Internet bullying is just as bad.

    Have you ever used a chat room? Have you made any friends in chat rooms?

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Comments (23)

  • KickingSheep@xanga

    When I was younger I had a few chat rooms friends, it's just not appealing any more now.
  • quasarglow@xanga

    When I was a teenager I went into chat rooms a lot. They don't interest me any more. I still talk to a couple people I have met in chat rooms, though. Including my boyfriend of almost 4 years. We met in a teen chat when we were 16 and started dating and visiting each other IRL when we were 17. We're almost 21 now.
  • donspike@xanga

    Love the picture for this post.
  • Hinase@xanga

    I used to be on chat rooms all the time when I was younger. It's no longer fun.
  • Pcgecko85@xanga

    i use to go to AOL chat rooms and annoy people with the sounds. I think the command was like {S something something.  Twas fun.
  • MochaMoose230@xanga

    Like middle school through my sophomore year of high school I loved AIM chat rooms. Random chat rooms with strangers, or making chat rooms with friends. I definitely grew out of it. Flirting with random people I don't know, lying about my age and who I am and saying weird things to get a rise out of people isn't as amusing as it was when I was 13... hahaha. What a surprise. 
  • supersaiyanhannah@xanga

    I once posed as a (entirely made up) 6-year-old boy named Yoshi, who was not actually Japanese and happened to be a genius (I claimed to be in 7th grade, which I actually was at the time). It was an interesting conversation.
  • xraindropsonroses@xanga

    When I was 12, I chatted with this guy from India, gave him my msn, and webcammed him. Told him I was getting married the next day. We later got into an argument about how the land size of Canada is bigger than the land size of India. He was positive that the land size of India was bigger than Canada's..


    Yeah, I used chat rooms when I was younger, but they don't appeal to me anymore.
    I also got asked to flash this guy, I said okay, grabbed a flash light, and then flashed him.. He blocked me. Clever 12 year old mind.

  • snarkius@xanga

    That picture could have been my friends and I...learning about sex through chat rooms.  Now the young 'uns actually have sex.  Now I feel old.
  • cryholy@xanga

    I never dared enter chat rooms haha. And after watching copious amounts of L&O: SVU these past two to three weeks, I don't think I ever plan to o___o
  • valeriebeth04@xanga

    I didnt even know what the internet was until I was 18....so when I started chatting I was already 18 years old.
  • xxnosferatu_alucardxx@xanga

    I wouldn't say I've made friends with people in chat rooms...more like acquaintances. Some are pretty ok, but you never know if they claim to be who they are. But, then again, they might think of me like that.


    I have a friend who actually loves going on chat rooms so he can flirt and what not. Sadly, a lot of people that I encountered in chat rooms were full of horny perverts...didn't even have class lol

  • xxnosferatu_alucardxx@xanga

    I have another friend...let's just say her chat room experiences have been anything but pretty.

  • andrialauren@xanga

    I haven't really gone in any chat rooms that I can recall. I've tried Omegle and Chatroulette though- I've only had one successful encounter from that! 
  • lilblucherrygrl@xanga

    Omg, AOL chat rooms had the weirdest people I've ever had the displeasure of speaking to. Never again...
  • P0RCELA1N_D0LL@xanga

    when I was a naive boy-crazy jailbait in high school, I went to yahoo chatrooms and that's where I stumbled upon this college guy, talked to him every day after school and later I met him without knowing what he looks like beforehand but he seemed harmless and at the time, I thought he was the coolest older guy, who was in this car racing team. I always had a thing for older guys, so he appealed to me. I boasted about him to my friends and they were looking out for me and said that if I met him at a restaurant or somewhere public that they would be nearby as the security guards. anyway, he knew what I looked like and was eager to meet me. well, he was nothing like I imagined lol lesson learned. never doing that again. good thing he wasn't a kidnapper/molester/rapist/murderer. he knew my age and he bragged to me to his friend and I knew this because he gave my sn to his friend to talk to me, too. weird. probably to prove that he was actually talking to me and not making it up. his friend was the super honest type, so he told me that he was two-timing me and lied to me about studying at the library when he was at some frat party trying to get with this other girl. he wasn't my bf but as a naive teen, I was duped to think that he liked me because he said things implying a potential relationship, but he probably just wanted to hook up with me. I saw a pic of his friend and he is cute and a better catch than him but he already had someone else in mind that he liked, so we were just friends. I didn't lie about my age. most of these guys that I talked to were older and knew that I was jailbait. I wasn't creeped out at the time because talking to older guys made me feel more mature in my naive teen mindset lol looking back, I regret sending these creeps my pics. now I'm a lot more discreet and careful.
  • Spectrophile@xanga

    When I first went on the internet regularly (about a decade ago), I went to a chat site, which I can't remember the name of. Basically everyone was anonymous, so you couldn't tell if who you were talking to were really who they were. It was fun for a while, though I only really made one connection, which didn't last long. I stopped using that site (and all chat rooms in general) when a hacker used it to take control of my computer. I'm sure security has improved a lot since then, but I have no interest any more.I socialise via message boards now.
  • welshcake

    I guess it's fine... as long as you don't take it too seriously, and accept that not everybody is quite as they seem. :) 
  • fields_of_sunflowers@xanga

    I didn't realise people still used chat rooms! I went on them a lot when I was about fifteen, but I was never stupid enough to give away any personal information - hell, I never even gave out my real first name or age, let alone anything else.


    I considered them a bit of fun, but I don't see the attraction of them at all anymore.
  • dragon_king@xanga

    I was really into chat rooms back in HS when people were using AOL
  • itscatwithak@xanga

    From middle school to early high school I spent a lot of time in chat rooms.  It was fun pretending to be a different person everyday.  I never gave out any real personal information and used a proxy to make sure people couldn't track me, so I felt relatively safe.  I do understand that there are naive people out there that might share information that can get them into trouble, so that's something that can be a big issue.  As for making friends in chat rooms, I did make some acquaintances.  Usually I wouldn't talk to the same people for more then a couple weeks though.  I haven't been in a chat room in years, outside of some online classes I took.
  • StarlessArtemis@xanga

    I use to go in yahoo chatrooms a lot back in high school. it was interesting pretending to be a precocious 7 year old kid. hehe
  • LikeaMothToAFlame@xanga

    rofl I'd go into chat rooms as an 8 year old and say I was 18.

    somehow people believed it?

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