Internet Safety- Chatting Online Could Be Dangerous
Chatting Online
One of the biggest things to do online, especially for teenagers is to chat online. There are forums, chat rooms, chat during games and so on. I remember as a teenager going onto chat rooms for hours sometimes and just talking to people. It was fun and interesting. My mom always told me to be careful about what I wrote. Now I truly see what she was talking about.
Internet Safety
Chatting Could Be Dangerous
I was playing Bingo on Facebook last night and while waiting, I read the chat that was going on. There was one girl on there that was especially active. The normal question of "Age and Location" came up. I used to just type my state and never went further than that. That is what this girl did. Except, there was someone else from the same state in the chat room. He asked her where exactly she was. She then told him her city. He said his grandmother lived out there and explained what part of the city his grandmother was. She then told him exactly what street she lived on. This is a chat room with over 100 people in it and she just told everyone where she lived.
To go on, she answered other peoples questions of what age, what they looked like and so on. In thirty minutes, I knew this girl was 5'3 with medium length curly light brown hair and brown eyes, Hispanic/Caucasian mix, her name, what street she lived on, where her mom worked, and that her school was just down the block and I wasn't even chatting myself. I wonder if her mom knew that she just gave away all of that information.
How To Keep Yourself Safe
1) Only give out your first name and state. Don't narrow it down to what city.
2) Never state where you or your parents work.
3) NEVER say what street you live on.
4)Don't give out any personal information such as specifics about what you look like.
5) Parents, monitor your children when they are chatting. A human being doesn't develop their frontal lobe fully until their twenties so they will not fully understand the consequences of their actions until then. So it is important to watch them because they may not realize how much information they are giving out.
6) NEVER meet a person from the Internet in real person. It's so easy to do with all the dating sites and other things out there, but it could be really dangerous.
7) Last but not least, have common sense. Sometimes it's easier said than done.
