| Product: |
Chatrooms in general |
| Date: |
16/10/01 (1196 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: can make a wide variety of friends
Disadvantages: people tell lies, easy to get addicted to chatrooms.internet
The Internet is a very exciting place to be, with endless possibilities to explore. A very small part of the internet are those rooms where hours and hours of fun can be spent, flirting and chatting with different people. When I first started using the Internet 4 years ago, it was the most amazing thing to have all this information at my fingertips. What I found even more fantastical at the time was being able to 'talk' to people from all over the world, without leaving home or being charged exorbitant call charges. I have used many chatrooms, initially starting with the one my Internet service provider hosted. It was great fun around 30 -40 people from up and down the country of varying ages and interests all chatting together. I used to look forward to logging on to see if there was anyone around to chat to - which there always was and would spend hours whiling away my time chatting to different people. I forged some pretty close bonds with some of the chatroom members both male and female; we regularly exchanged e-mails and met up for private chats in the chatroom. We all went through some pretty harrowing times together and supported each other, just as real friends would. This went on for many months and all was hunky dory - until I received a phone call at home, from one of my chat room friends. He decided to give me a ring as I was pretty distraught the previous night in the chatroom, having just lost my best friend. I was scared. How the hell had he obtained my phone number? I hadn’t given it to anyone! It was easy. We had been chatting for around 9 months, about life the universe and everything - you know how it is. During which time I had divulged snippets of information about myself. My biggest mistake was having my name (first and second name) as my email address; (I didn’t know how to set up other email addresses at the time). As we had chatted we had got to know w
here each other lived, what we did for a living and so on. So armed with my name and rough idea of the area in which I lived he went off to www.bt.com and found not only my telephone number but also my address. He was quite up front about how he had found out my details and very apologetic, he thought it would be nice to actually 'talk' and didn’t realise that it would scare me. Although it was pleasant to talk to this person it slammed home in a most unpleasant fashion how dangerous chatrooms can be. As a result of this episode we changed our phone number and are now ex - directory, my email address no longer has my name in it, I have a separate email address for any people I don’t know or don’t trust. Some advice that I would have liked before venturing into the chatrooms follows ~ Never ever use your first and last names to form part of your email address ~ Never give out your home telephone number; if you really must give a number then ensure it is a mobile number. ~ Never give anyone you don’t know your home address that includes your postcode too, or that of your workplace. If you have been chatting to a person for a long period of time, and really feel you 'know' that person, you may feel safe to hand over your address or home number. All I can say is MAKE SURE, some people are masters of deception and can be very patient. I know of someone who claims to be a 25 year old single male - he isn’t at all, he is 46 and married with 3 children. This chap happens to have a host of women emailing, texting and phoning him everyday. He has maintained his charade for 3 years so far undiscovered by his wife!! Just because s/he says s/he will leave their partners and kids and run away with you doesn’t mean to say s/he means it. When s/he says they love you, they most probably don’t mean it. Don’t take things to heart but with a huge pinch of sal
t. I wonder how many people have left their real relationship to be with their screen lover, only to find s/he has all of a sudden lost interest. This brings me to some other points of advice Nicknames: Be very wary of the people you talk to and look at the nicknames they use, Kim23, lesley24 could be either male or female, if you are not sure then ask! If could come as a rude awakening to think that you are chatting to a female, only to receive a picture of a man! It has happened. The most common introduction in a private conversation is ‘a/s/l’ meaning ‘age/sex/location/’ this will usually rule out any mistakes. BEWARE - men can pose as women and vice versa. You can be who you want to be in a chatroom, bear in mind that so can anyone else. You may think you are chatting to John 23 from Birmingham, he might be Elsie 54 from Brighton - you just don’t know. Several television programmes have highlighted the problem of paedophiles lurking in teen chat rooms and luring children to unpleasant encounters. HORNY2NITE most probably wont want to talk about movements on the stock exchange, more likely a different type of movement - If that’s your thing then go for it, if not avoid like the plague. Choose your nickname carefully - a name such as 'sexybabe' or 'hothunny' will attract a lot of male attention, not all of it wanted. If you are not interested in cybersex then avoid in your face sexual references in your nickname. Moderators will remove offensive or vulgar nicknames from the chatrooms. Room Names You will find endless rooms to chat in, the majority 'normal' rooms perhaps entitled 'lobby' you will perhaps find like minded people here to chat to. However you will find some very disturbingly titled rooms, which should be avoided at all costs. Cybersex Cybersex is n
ot obligatory - you don’t HAVE to do it and not everyone does, however should you want to then that is up to you. If s/he asks for pictures of you with little or nothing on DONT do it, you have NO idea where those photos will end up. The last thing you want is your little/big brother/sister and friends gawping at your photos in the 'readers wives' section of a top shelf magazine or on a website somewhere. If someone is harassing you, asking you to have cybersex with them, you have a couple of options one is to ignore them, or change your chatroom name, or report them to the moderators in the main chatroom. In all the chatrooms I have used the moderators have been very helpful in removing the offending person. The last option can be a little cruel and is one I have used seldom, but has proved to be very very effective, cut and paste their request in the main chatroom, causes endless amusement to other chatters and embarrassment to the person bothering you. Meeting someone from a chatroom If you have been chatting to someone for a long period of time and feel you want to meet up with them, may I suggest you chat to them on the phone for a while first. ~ Once you are really sure you want to meet you should still be very careful. ~ Never arrange to meet at your or their homes - I would be very suspicious if someone invited me to their house. ~ Arrange to meet in a public place, a coffee house, pub, restaurant or some such place where there are plenty of people. Make sure you go Dutch, therefore no 'expectations' on either side. ~ Do not go off in their car, make your own way there and arrange to make your own way home also and have the means to do so. ~ Tell a friend (offline) that you are going to meet this person, give them the persons mobile number and car registration number. Let your friend know when you will be home, and get them to ring you and ensu
re you are OK on your return. ~ Having met up with your online friend, still exercise caution. You still don’t 'really' know them, keep your address under wraps until you are certain sure. Chat room addiction Yes you can become addicted to chat rooms, I know I did for a while. I had just had James and was at home all day long. When James was sleeping I would log on and chat to people, just to get some adult company, as my other half was working. It became second nature to go into the chatroom as soon as I connected to the net and stay there until James woke for his feeds. Fortunately for me this only lasted a short period of time, and I realised how addicted I was and what I was missing out on in real life. Signs of chatroom addiction You feel you can talk in more detail about your life to your 'net friends' than to people actually in your life. You feel that friends and family offline don’t understand you as well as your online friends You have romantic fantasies about your chatroom friends You become irritable and miserable if you don’t chat to your online friends for a couple of days. You give up hobbies/going out to spend more time in the chatrooms You miss out on spending quality time with your family to spend time online; fobbing kids and partners off with videos etc Friends and family are complaining your phone is always engaged You are missing sleep to stay on the internet/chatrooms, late nights etc You neglect housework to spend time on the internet/chatrooms You are defensive when it is suggested you spend too long online You think about getting on the internet/chatrooms/online friends whilst doing other activities You neglect offline friends in
favour of online friends. You neglect your partner in favour of a cyber lover You neglect your hygiene so as to spend more time online If some or all of the above apply to you, then it is time to pull the plug for a while and realise that not going into a chatroom for a week wont kill you. If you don’t step back and take stock of life, it may well kill your relationships with real people, family, friends and children which is a hefty price to pay for chatting to a stranger.
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Last comments:
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- 11/08/02 Very good opinion. That is me, the addict! |
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- 28/05/02 Great op, covers all the necessary. Makes me think about my email address, it sounds unintentionally horny... :/ |
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- 29/10/01 Scary stuff - and an op well worth the crown. |
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