Dangers of chatting online
Many Singaporean teenagers today have found a common hobby-chatting online. This has come about with the growing numbers of readily downloadable and user-friendly programs online such as the Internet Relay Chat (IRC), I Seek You (ICQ) and Microsoft messenger (MSN messenger). Users are free to discuss any topic with anyone in the chat rooms. Most teenagers find the relative anonymity and convenience of chatting online fun and interesting but many do not realize or disregard the dangers online chatting pose. In this article, I shall examine the dangers of chatting online and how readers can avoid them. While Chatting Online, teenagers tend to confide their lives' problems, their thoughts and feelings to chatting partners moments after starting their conversation. In doing so, they often perceive a close relationship with their chatting partners. That is, good friends whom they can always confide in or even as a boyfriend/girlfriend. There is also a high propensity for teenagers to give out personal information like their mobile phone number and where they live, to chatting partners. The problem with online chat is people usually only "see" a sugar-coated version of their chatting partner. Consciously or sub
In addition, the high level of dishonesty present in chat rooms means that whatever your chatting partner have said could be fabricated or an exaggeration. Another danger is that chatting partners could easily track you down with the personal information you leak out about yourself. It could lead to harassment, stalking, rape, murder or any other kind of distress. Assessing information about another person without physical, nonverbal cues like body language frequently turns out to be inaccurate. ("The pros and cons of Web matchmaking" (2002), ¶23) Secondly, limit the amount of personal information you reveal. ("Internet Dating Do's & Don'ts", ¶1) Thirdly, try not to meet your chatting partners but if you are, inform your parents or someone you can trust and bring along friends for the meeting. This could be particularly dangerous if your chatting partner happens to be obsessed with you or he/she is an internet predator. For example, when giving geographical location, limit yourself to a large region. Just simple measures can prevent your chatting experience from becoming a nightmare. You never know when you could become the next victim. Reece Burka, a New Orleans psychologist says, "A false sense of intimacy is created when interaction remains purely cognitive. After all, it's always better to be safe then sorry. After all, no one is obliged to tell the truth about themselves online.
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