Your teen should also consider that the person they are communicating with may not be who they say they are. Ask them not to give out their other social media profiles out either to ensure privacy.
Even telling someone the name of their town, their school or where they sometimes hang out may be enough to identify them. This means not giving out their phone number, email address or home address. Inform your teen of the importance of maintaining their privacy whilst in chat rooms.
It is important that they remember they can just turn their computer off and walk away at any point they like. Talk to your teen about standing up to peer pressure and to never do anything they feel uncomfortable with. Your teen may be harassed by other users to ‘flash’ parts of their body at the camera or do something inappropriate. Unfortunately, the anonymity the internet offers can lead people to forget social boundaries. Webcams can also be hacked into and turned on without your teen’s knowledge so it is important that they turn their webcams off properly, perhaps even by covering the lens when the webcam is not in use. There have been numerous incidents of teens having their image captured and used maliciously. This is not advised even if your teen knows the person in real life. Whilst in chat rooms your teen may be asked to turn their webcam on. online gaming groups known as ‘clans’, shared interest groups through blogging sites such as Tumblr or Reddit, or even online study groups through learning platforms such as Coursera or Edx, the most important thing is that your teen stays safe whilst online. While it is not unusual for teens to make many online friends whom they don’t know in real life (IRL), e.g. You may learn about other cultures and about people from different walks of life, but it is important for your teen to remember that they are speaking with strangers. It can be exciting and informative to communicate with different people online. In these ‘rooms’ your teen can pick an alias for themselves or create an avatar (an icon or image representing that person) and begin communicating with strangers in a matter of minutes. Outside of social media chat functions like Facebook messenger, Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp there are a number of teen chat rooms that are easily accessible through a simple Google search.