LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Kids Chat Rooms: Instant Messaging
built 606 days ago
Predators establish contact with kids through conversations in chat rooms, instant messaging, e-mail or discussion boards. Many teens use "peer support" online forums to deal with their problems. Predators... often go to these online areas to look for vulnerable victims.
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Creeps hang around in kids’ chat rooms and in instant messaging services like MSN. They’re grown adults, but they pretend to be kids. They practice chatting like kids, and they pretend to be interested in whatever kids are interested in. Some of them get very good at it. It can be hard to tell whether you’re talking to a real kid or a fake.
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Many parents confuse instant messaging with chat rooms when their kids say they are 'chatting' online. While both technologies involve talking in 'real time,' there are important differences that have safety implications.
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Many of the structures, rules, and concepts developed by the CB simulator scene carried on into the later chat room concepts. This included the invention of the IM, or instant message, which was sometimes referred to as a PM or personal message. This would be a one-to-one conversation. Someone during this early era came up with an ad hoc rule that it was rude to IM someone without asking first in the larger chat room. This "rule" can still be seen in arcane chat rooms today.
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Instant Messaging