The Pros And Cons Of Chat Rooms


by Teri Plaxton - Date: 2007-03-23 - Word Count: 636 Share This!

Socialization on the through internet chat rooms has become a growing trend. Online communications is quickly becoming a subsitute for face to face communications. The increasing availability of online communication tools has not only increased the efficiency in which humans interact, but has also brought about changes in the way humans interact. Due to the interpersonal boundaries of internet chat rooms, it is easy for people to express themselves in manners that would less likely take place in a more personal setting. Some would even go so far as to say an internet chat room is a state of anarchy due to the lack of control and regulation.

Chat rooms can be used for students to talk "live" to other users that are online at that time. This is called "synchronous" communication. Chat rooms can have specified topics that students talk about or can be open for any topics. Many dangers have been associated with open chat rooms where users really do not know who they are "chatting" with and inappropriate discussions may take place.

Chatting with friends online - via services like MySpace and Bebo - is beginning to take over from watching TV as the main hobby of many young people. Much of the chat is happening in what are called 'community websites'. Unlike chat rooms, they are not open to everyone: each person has to be invited to join in. A safer alternative is a private chat room where only certain known users are allowed into the chat room. This can be useful for students in a class to have a discussion with one another, for students to work in groups or for private interviews with a few people. It is not as useful if students are in different time zones since the discussion takes place in real time. Asynchronous chatting can be done through discussion boards.

Chat rooms (synchronous discussions) seem to have few advantages over news groups, listservs, or mailing lists (asynchronous discussions) - with one exception. Discussions on complicated concepts, when conducted in asynchronous mode, can take many days, or even weeks, to complete. In a chat room, the same discussion may be completed in a much shorter time. This can be very important in teaching math, science, and technology.

However, the concept has recently evolved in such a way that it mostly refers to simultaneous ("synchronous") discussions. This means that the participants are at their computers at the same time, and respond to each other's messages immediately, much like a discussion between people in a room.

1.The major disadvantage of chat rooms is that the participants need to schedule to meet at a particular time. As with any other meeting, this may be inconvenient, and may take much administration to achieve with busy people.

2.At present, not many regular public chat rooms have been established for educational purposes.

While public chat rooms for the purpose of school education are few, there are many (the great majority, and those most easily accessible, by all appearances) which are devoted to sexually explicit discussions of a kind that is most unsuitable for most school children. It is rumoured that some persons with a taste for sexual abuse of children have used chat rooms to make contact with child victims. Many people may not be familiar with how an internet chat room works. Upon entering a chat room, a person will be provided with an id. This can be an id specific to a particular chat room or depending on the service provider, it can be ones login id for their internet service. These ids are usually anynomous in nature.

An internet chat room offers an environment that is anynomous and one that allows for uninhibited freedom without fear of being indentified. This allows people to stay in control and make expressions that may not normally be made in a face to face interaction.


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