Chatrooms are the in thing when it comes to the internet, other than email and messengers, chatrooms provide a fruitful portal to millions of users throughout the world.
There are so many options depending upon which chatroom facility you use, ie: -
- Messaging text (chatroom, email or private)
- Voice (chatroom, email or private)
- Video conferencing (chatroom, email or privately usually with the use of webcams)
All of the above in some instances can be all used at once, giving you everthing other than smell and touch, though I've heard people trying to develope an electrical impulse system for those who wish to get that little bit more from their cyberfriends!
Now even though chatrooms sound fun and interesting etc. there are some things to consider: -
- Teenagers : Though there can be a lot of fun to be found in chatrooms, teenagers and parents should be made aware of dangers within these environments, ie. burglars, stalkers, paedophiles, murderers, rapists, sex offenders, perverts etc. and YES they can very well be in any chatroom on the internet waiting for the chance to do what they do best other than manipulate people on the internet.
If you intend to go meet someone from the internet for the first time, even if it does sound a little sad and demoralizing, why not go with an adult just incase the 15 year old you are suppose to meet turns out to be a 50 year old rapest, unfortunately this does happen and a lot so beware!
- Families : Well this happens a lot of the time and the stupid thing is that the people who are on the net can't see the damage they are doing to their family or blame someone else.
What starts off as a 30min chatter once a week turns into many hours per night this is not a problem if the rest of the family are tied up with other things, but when it starts to interfere with reality this is when everything falls apart, the partners and/or family feels unwanted, left out, abandoned, put on the shelf like an old coffee mug.
Communication breaks down in reality and before you know it, divorce papers are being served, and for what? For someone's negligence in their surrounding because they forgot they had family.
Families survive on communication, bonding and sharing, if you lock yourself in a room talking on the net then the family will seek out another place for their needs, this is a FACT and I see it happening way too often.
- Single People : The internet can be a place of wealth to a single person living on their own if they seek people to chat too, meet etc. but like teenagers, beware there are some nasty people out there who can easily end up being stalkers etc.
My advise if you're going to meet people, keep secret information a secret for a long long time after you've met the person you're gonna meet, stalkers only need a small amount of information to gain all your personal secrets and play on them, you have been warned!
Well keeping the above in mind there shouldn't be anything more to worry about other than possibly a few rude pictures on display (Excite Chat uses pictures called "Avatars") or swearing in the rooms (usually hosts or admin will sort this out if they are around), so please remember that the internet is not real place and after all, about 90% of the internet chatters are using false details so that they aren't stalked etc. I'm probably one of few that actually use a proper ID cos' basically I've got nothing to hide :o)
ENJOY!