Chat Groups

Okay...a little more success here I think. I can see the merit in chat groups, but I can also see how people could spend too much time in chat rooms! I have successfully set up my ICQ account and am awaiting a chat tomorrow night (Sunday) at 9pm. I'm looking forward to the experience. I have already made a few observations:-

1. I have spent a huge amount of time setting up accounts for different things and searching through the various sites to learn how they work. I realise once you've passed the initial stages of setting up you can go straight to chat/newsgroup/list etc., but I feel like I'm spending a lot of time stuffing around and not much time actually doing anything!

2. Chat rooms are great for catching up with people you can't usually catch up with, for studying, for quick discussions from different locations, for 'speaking' to friends and rellies overseas. I can imagine lots of really good uses, but I wonder whether sometimes it's just easier to pick up the phone? Will I be in hot water suggesting that? I like listening to the laughter in a friend's voice when I speak to them on the phone. I can offer sympathy - not just in words but in voice - when I need to, or can interrupt if it's appopriate. I can sense anger or disappointment, joy or sorrow. It's ever better face to face over a coffee or lunch. I can't imagine having the same 'discussions' in a chat room that I have with my friends face to face or on the phone - with the same spontaneity and laughter and interaction - body language, voice and words. I understand we can have a voice in text, but I'm not sure it compares to reality.

3. Chat rooms certainly offer a unique opportunity to communicate with others in a real-time, synchronous way without actually being physically together. This is wonderful if you already know the people you are chatting with, is a lifesaver for someone unable to physically meet new people, and is exciting if you just want to meet new people online. However, if you chat to strangers, you can't ever really know 'WHO' you are chatting to. There are benefits in that you can be anyone you like - brave, crazy, fun, successful, popular....whatever and whoever you want, but so can the other person/people. I could be chatting to a very different person to the one profiled - age, sex, interests.....

4. The unique ability to chat to different groups at once, to speak privately to someone whilst still chatting to a group, and to be a different author with each group is really useful in many ways. Sometimes chat will be more beneficial than face to face or phone discussion, but there is also a risk of the chat becoming superficial and fake. Do you become a different person when you are chatting as compared to actually seeing and speaking to people? It is very easy to take on a different persona - and if this is kept to virtual communication then it can be lots of fun. If the virtual persona begins to cross into the physical persona things get difficult and dangerous!

5. This begs the question - how much of the chatting is 'real' - is a large amount of chat room discussion really 'virtual reality' stuff? It's so easy to be anyone, not necessarily who you really are - it has an exciting place in the new modern world of the information age, but it will be interesting to see where it leads.