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Zero Chan

IT WAS AFTER 1 AM as I sat hammering away at my computer. Earlier that evening I had decided to test the waters of cyber world chat rooms and, assuming a new identity, I gingerly logged on.

Calling myself blue-rabbit, I masqueraded as a 15-year-old girl. It was not long before I realised that the letters G, A and H stood for gender, age and height respectively.

Most of those at the other end of my computer connection turned out to be males - males that, according to themselves, all had movie star-like appearances.

My first encounter was with 'edison-cop' who asked me a lot of questions about myself. He wanted to know where I studied and where I lived and also asked me if it was my first time in this particular chat room. Edison-cop said he was only 17 and that he worked as a waiter. He said he had dropped out of school in Form Three.

Our meaningless chit-chat carried on for a while but he eventually asked for my telephone number. I immediately thought of the cardinal rule my mother had hammered into me - never talk to strangers.

My refusal resulted in an abrupt end to the short conversation. This was not, however, the end to my cyber chats and before the night was out I had received six messages of explicit sexual nature from strangers.

According to regular teenage Internet surfer Zoe Lee Shuk-yi, such requests are quite common. She said she often encountered strangers in chat rooms who ended up wanting personal details. The first question is often about whether she has a boyfriend or not, she said.

'I won't tell them my real name, telephone number or address,' she said, adding that she also often withheld her age.

'If they are too pushy or swear a lot, I leave the chat room,' said the fifth former.

She admitted, though, that chatting on the Internet was a common way she communicated with friends and made new ones. She also said that once she spent 12 hours chatting online.

However, Shuk-yi said she always bore in mind warnings from her teachers and parents not to give her personal details.

Sadly not all teenagers are as careful as Shuk-yi. She said some of her friends had gone out with people they had met online and some had got themselves into trouble.

'When my friends went out with their Net friends, they often found they were not as good looking as the pictures they sent them. Some kept calling up or even sending pornographic pictures after they gave them their telephone numbers. It's hard to get rid of them too,' she said.

Angel Yeung On-ki, assistant Web producer for Uzone21, the Web site of Christian youth group Breakthrough, says it is not uncommon for youngsters to come across seedy characters on the Internet.

She says it is natural for youngsters to talk to strangers and touch on the topic of sex, especially in big chat rooms with people from all over the world. She says youngsters need to know about and analyse the issue for themselves.

It is part of the Internet culture for people to use fake identities and youngsters are often smart enough to hide their personal information. But sometimes they are simply curious about 'cyber sex', explains Ms Yeung.

'Most youngsters understand they should not take cyber talk too seriously. But it's hard to resist sweet words and honeyed phrases,' she says.

However, Ms Yeung says she hopes youngsters using chat rooms would have common sense and refrain from trusting strangers too easily.

Ms Yeung recommends her organisation's Web site (www.uzone21.com) for clean and constructive conversations. 'The topics they talk about are general and as our community atmosphere is quite healthy, few people talk about cyber sex,' she says.



Youngsters warned to use common sense and refrain from trusting strangers too easily