Teenagers should be discouraged from going into internet chat rooms

The Internet has always been an outlet for people to find out more about the world around them, and they often do so through Internet chat rooms. Unfortunately, many of these people have fallen victim to sex crimes. It is frightening to think that perhaps the majority of Internet chat room users are looking for young and naïve teenagers to satisfy their sick desires. However, all is not lost. I believe that Internet chat rooms can still be an outlet for socializing with other people, but only to a certain extent.

One of the most popular Internet chat rooms at the moment is the IRC which stands for Internet Relay Chat. Anyone has free access to these chat rooms and they are filled with people from all over the world, especially teenagers. In my opinion, conversation in Internet chat rooms pan out into two ways. One way leads to the giving away of your personal particulars, and place yourself in a high-risk situation. For example, the numerous teenage girls who have become prey to online stalkers. The other way does not end with the passing away of your phone number or other details to the other person. Instead, conversations can be meant to find perhaps, similar interests between both parties. For instance, I had an online conversation with someone I did not know. When we started talking about music, we found that we had similar interests, and had a long conversation thereafter. So, it is these similar interests that make a conversation interesting, but if you still feel that the person is untrustworthy, just give a courteous farewell, and leave the chat room.

It is still safe sometimes to chat in an Internet chat room, especially if you are in a channel where you know all your friends. Basically, in an Internet chat room, there are different channels separating the different people online. And anyone can open up their own channels, so if you chat within your friend’s channel, not only are you able to chat with people that you know, you are able to chat with your friend’s friends, widening your social circle as a result.

And now, with the wide usage of applications such as MSN (Microsoft Network) Messenger and Friendster, we only chat with people that we already know, making it much safer for everyone. Furthermore, you are able to block
someone from chatting with you on MSN Messenger and on Friendster. We are also able to see that particular person’s photograph before we decide to chat with him or her. Therefore, teenagers should not be discouraged from going into these chat rooms if they know how to protect themeslves. Furthermore, they would make more friends safely and the crime rate related to the Internet would slowly decrease.