Online chat is similar to talking on an old-fashioned party line or CB radio. In the infancy of the telephone system, people usually shared their phone line with other families, especially in rural America, where the cost of stringing telephone lines was expensive. Everyone on the party line could join in any conversation, offering hours of nosy fun for people with nothing better to do. Today, people often arrange conference calls to have several people all talk together.
Chatting is similar to a conference call except that, rather than talk, you type on your keyboard what you want to say and read on-screen what other people are saying. Although all the people participating in the chat can be typing at one time, each person's contribution is presented on-screen in order of its receipt, identified by the name of the person who typed it.
You can chat in two main ways:
Channels or rooms, which resemble an ongoing conference call with a bunch of people. After you join a channel, you can read on-screen what people are saying and then add your own comments just by typing them and pressing Enter.
Direct connection, which is a private conversation between you and another person connected to a chat system.
Which groups of people are available when you begin to chat depends on how you're connected to the Internet. If you use America Online, or AOL (where the groups are called chat rooms), you chat with other AOL users. WebTV users have WebTV's Chat City. Users with regular Internet accounts talk to other people using the Internet's IRC (Internet Relay Chat) system. Anyone with access to the Web can use Web-based chat.
Each channel has a name; with luck, the name is an indication of what the chatters there are talking about or what they have in common. Some channels have names such as #chat, and the people there are probably just being sociable.
No matter which chat facility you're using, you should know that most people select a screen name, or nickname, to use before they join a group. Other members of the group know you by your screen name, a temporary name often chosen to be unique, colorful, or clever and used as a mask. Chatters sometimes change their screen names. If you join a group and have a nice chat with someone named DrNo, the next time you see that name, you have no guarantee that it's the same person. This anonymity makes chatting a place to be careful. On the other hand, one of the attractions of chatting is meeting new and interesting people. Many warm and wonderful friendships have evolved from a chance meeting in a chat room.
When you join a group and begin chatting, you see the screen names of the people who are already there and a window in which the current conversation goes flying by. If the group is friendly, somebody may even send you a welcome message.
As in real life, a room full of strangers can have people you don't like much. Because it's possible to be fairly anonymous on the Internet, some people act boorish, vulgar, or crude. So you should be careful (to put it mildly!) about letting your children chat unsupervised. When you're new to chat, you may accidentally visit some disgusting places, although you'll find out how to avoid them and find rooms that have useful, friendly, and supportive conversations
0 comments:
แสดงความคิดเห็น