Chat

What is Online Chat?
Online chat is similar to a conference call except that the conversation is typed rather than spoken and is conducted through a computer (which is connected to the Internet). Many people can be involved in a discussion in a chat room. As a chat participant types their message and sends it, it appears on the computer screens of all the other participating chat room individuals. Most chat rooms provide a feature where two individuals can leave the main chat and conduct a private chat.

A chat room is a tool and, like many tools, can be used for good or bad purposes. Some educational institutions use closed chat rooms to facilitate brainstorming and discussion between students on specific topics. These types of chat rooms are safe as a teacher typically monitors them. Public chat rooms are chat rooms that anyone can enter regardless of how the room is labeled. A teen chat room, for example, is not restricted to teens, even if it says "teens only." Online gaming chat rooms are public chats as well and are open to whomever enters the room. This is one danger of chat rooms, that predators may be, and often are, in chat rooms that are frequented by our youth.

Click here for a picture of a public chat room screen. Notice that all of the individuals who have entered into the chat room, whether or not they are saying anything, are listed on the right side of the screen. The name can be clicked upon as a link to their profile.

While in a chat room another individual may IM (instant message) you. Click here for an image of what that looks like. Someone may also request permission to send a webcam or a file to download. These requests may contain materials that you would not want to view or to have your child view.

To use a translation guide for chat room conversations click here, or for a long list click here.

Dangers:

Many social cues are absent when using text based communication and misunderstandings can easily arise. It is important to be careful and clear when communicating in this fashion. Emoticons are often used to add an emotional expression to the message.

You can never really know with whom you are chatting, unless you actually know the person face to face, and even then someone else could be impersonating them. The longer you spend talking with someone the more personal information you tend to reveal. It is not safe to reveal personal information to cyberpals.

Chat rooms for children provide a rich hunting ground for online predators. Predators will often cultivate relationships with children posing as a sympathetic peer who has the same interests and is very understanding of all the child's problems. Predators will cull information about their victims through profiles, screen names and searches of the screen names. The predator will invest significant amounts of time in developing the relationship. The predator may pose as several different people in the chat room each validating the others' existence. As the relationship progresses, the predator will elicit more and more personal information from the child. Even if the child has no intention of trying to meet the online “friend” they may have given the predator enough information that the predator can locate them.

Children experiencing social difficulties in the real world may develop an unhealthy set of online relationships, abandoning normal relationships, and withdrawing into a fantasy world.

Children may be exposed to vulgar language and sexually explicit images and discussions. Web cameras, digital cameras, and picture cell phones make it very easy for an individual to send pictures of anything.

If parents do allow children to visit chat rooms the basic safety rules apply.

• Do not give out any personal information:
• Name
• Address
• Phone number
• Email address
• School attended
• Passwords
• Distinguishing family information
• Where a parent is employed
• Photos
• Do not attempt to meet anyone in person that you meet in a chat room
• Do not give out anyone else’s personal information
• Do not use a screen name that gives any information about you
• Do not use your real voice if the chat is voice enabled; use a gender-neutral voice mask
• Do leave the chat room if you become uncomfortable
• Do document anything that is a problem
  Click here for instructions on how to save a chat
• Do tell parents about anything that is a problem
• Don't consider the people you meet online as friends. They may be 'cyberpals', but you cannot know who they truly are by what they say they are.

Personal Stories:

The story of Ryan Patrick Halligan
The RyanPatrickHalligan site http://www.ryanpatrickhalligan.com

Katie Tarbox's Story
Katie's Compelling story may be found on the Web (Search www.Google.com), and she has published a book. For a brief synopsis go to the Perry Aftab site: http://parryaftab.blogspot.com/2004/07/katie-tarbox-and-katiecom-book-not.html

Amy's Story
The NetSmartz site http://www.netsmartz.org/news/amystory.htm

Resources:
The NetAlert site http://www.netalert.gov.au/advice/services/chat/what_is_a_chat_room.html
The Webopedia site http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/c/chat.html
The AlwaysSafe site http://alwayssafe.4t.com/technology.html
The Teachers Guide sitehttp://www.theteachersguide.com/Internetsafety.html
The ChatDanger sitehttp://www.chatdanger.com/games/safetyadvice.aspx
The NetSamrtz site http://www.netsmartz.org/resources/reallife.htm for more real life stories
The TeenAngels site http://www.teenangels.org/
Chat Council of Europe Internet Literacy Handbook