Chat and IM

Instant messaging (IM) is a form of private online chat between two or more people. Only people you add to your list of friends can join a chat session and sessions are not moderated. When you send an instant message it goes straight to the people you send it to and appears on their computer screen almost immediately.

Creating Buddy Lists
Many Instant Messaging programmes allow users to keep a list of friends or ‘buddy list’, similar to an address book which allows users to set up their program so they can specify or preview whom they would like to chat with.

To create a buddy list you need to make a list of names (or e-mail addresses) of the people to whom you would like to send messages. If they are online the message service will let you know and you will be able to send a message to them. If your name is on someone else’s list they will know whether you are online and can send a message to you.

Instant messages are written in a similar way to text messages and the same abbreviations are often used. Most software also allows you to send small pictures such as a smiley face to show emotions. Instant Messaging software will often allow you to send and receive files with the person you are chatting to, such as photos or documents. However, many other types of files could also be sent by malicious users that may harm your computer or send your private information across the Internet.

View this video to learn how to use Instant Messenger services.

Chat

A chat room is an online forum which allows multiple users to chat together in real time online. This allows the user to chat to multiple others, most popularly using two way type or text talk, or to have chats with a smaller number of chosen users known as private chat. As technology develops, some chat rooms allow you to mix text based chatting with video and voice, using a web cam (Internet-based camera) and microphone. This may also provide audio options or visual options such as avatars where communities are represented in either 2 or 3 dimensional graphics. Internet Service Providers often provide additional facilities to sign up to Instant Messaging Services.

How do I join a chat room?
Joining a chat room is quite simple and there are many available. You may be able to search for a chat room if you have a particular interest, for example motor racing or mountain climbing using a search engine. As a good rule of thumb however many well known Internet Service Providers provide chat rooms which are suitable for particular age groups. These may also be moderated and have mechanisms for preventing inappropriate interaction and content.

Things you should look out for before joining a chat-room are:

• Is the chat room moderated?
• Who would you contact if you needed to complain about another person in the chat room?
• That none of your personal info will be passed on to other companies without your permission.

Gaming and Chat
Gaming is one of the most popular reasons for children using the Internet and can involve communication with other gamers, like in a chat room. Therefore all the same principles apply when gaming as when in a chat room and children should avoid using their own name when choosing their ‘gaming name’ (the name they log on with and play under).

(Safely)

Managing Instant Messenger buddy lists
 
It is a good idea to discuss with your child some guidelines regarding their ‘Buddy lists’. Children could perhaps organise people on their buddy list into groups such as: Family/ Real Life Friends / Online Friends. In this way children can clearly differentiate between people they know and trust from the real world, and those they have met through the Internet. By organising buddy lists in this way it can help kids to remember that online friends should remain online.

Blocking Messages & Ignoring People

In most IM client programs the majority of the settings can be found under Tools>Options and this is usually the case for managing who you want to receive messages from. It is sensible to check any option that is marked ‘Only accept messages from people on my allow/buddy list.’ This way you cannot receive unsolicited messages via IM.

As in the real world, you may decide that you no longer wish to receive messages from particular senders. In this case you can often move the offender’s name or email address from the accepted list to a banned or ignored list.

Personal Safety

Some message services ask if you want your details to be put in a members directory. However, if your name appears in a member’s directory, anyone using the service can see if you are online and send a message to you. In addition, your e-mail address may be published. This could lead to you receiving unwanted junk e-mail, spam. The best advice is to avoid member directories and only give your details to special friends or relatives. If you only give your details to people you trust then you will only get messages from people you want to talk to, and no-one else can use your details illegally.

You should set Messenger programs to save all conversations automatically.  This is an important way of keeping a record of who you have been talking to and what has been said.

Public vs. Private chat:
Contacts that begin in chat rooms can move into other areas such as email, instant messaging or text messaging on a mobile phone. Or, once you are in a chat room, you can be invited to have a one-to-one conversation with someone. These private, one-to-one conversations could be very dangerous because no one else can read what is being written.

In a public chat room there could be hundreds of people all chatting in the same window, which can become confusing as you try and follow all the different conversation threads. It’s sometimes preferable to chat privately with someone when public chat rooms are so congested. However, remember that in a private chat only the people you invite will see what is written. If you don’t like what someone is writing to you in a private chat you can always ignore or report them; you don’t have to chat with anyone if you don’t want to.
 
Unsuitable contacts:
The main area of risk when using chat is exposure to unsuitable contacts. Whilst contacts online may appear trustworthy, offline they may not be all what they seem.

When entering a chat room it is common to be asked to give out age, sex and location (ASL). Ensure your child is aware that they may not know people in the chat room so be cautious about giving away too much personal information.

If a friendship develops and the child wants to meet an online contact in the offline world, it is important they take a trusted adult or friend with them, and meet the person in a busy, well lit place to ensure their safety.

If things get out of hand in a chat-room:

• Stop and leave the Chat room
• Block the person who is making you uncomfortable so they can no longer contact you
• If it is really serious, then you can report them to the Chat host
• If you’re posting a profile, exert caution when including any information which could help to identify you offline – again that means your personal email address, mobile phone number, home or school address and also pictures of yourself.
• To report any sort of abuse, it’s really important to save as much information as you can. The more you have saved, the easier it will be to track down the people bothering you.