Stranger Danger On The Net

You wouldn't walk up to a complete stranger in the street and start talking about your personal things, would you? Yet each day, thousands of young people go online and give complete strangers detailed personal informa­tion. Most teens say they aren't worried about stranger danger. But they should.

Georgie

Georgie was 13 years old when she fell in love with someone she "met" on the Internet. He said that he was 15 and his name was Johnny. "We talked about everything — pop groups, TV programmes, boy-girl stuff. That's how it started," Georgie remembers. They exchanged photo­graphs: he sent her a photograph that showed the top part of his head, and a little bit of his eyes. He told her it was like that because he had a problem with his computer.

They ended up talking on the phone and very soon he asked her out on a date. Luckily, Georgie's mother in­sisted on going with her. She hid behind a big poster and watched what happened. Young Johnny turned out to be a 47-year-old man.

"When I saw him, I didn't know what to think, because I was shocked," Georgie says. "I thought it was maybe his dad or something. I was scared as well. Then my mum came over and spoke to him. She told him to go."

It took Georgie a few weeks to get over the shock. It was her first love, and no first love should be like this.

Linda

14-year-old Linda T. from California wasn't so lucky. Her online friend, who claimed to be 16, turned out to be a bald 49-year-old man with a criminal record. He lured her to his flat and kept her there for a week. "It was hell," Linda says.

The man was arrested and jailed, but Linda's saga didn't end there. In the following years, she learned who her friends really were and fought her way back from se­vere depression and bouts of shame and guilt.

"Now, looking back, I can see that there were some warning signs that there might be some sort of problem. But I ignored them," she admits.

She hardly goes to chat rooms at all now: "There's one friend t talk to online, but mostly I just use e-mails. And I wouldn't arrange to meet anybody, ever. You don't have to go on the Internet to meet people".

How not to have this happen to you

• Most chat users are normal, friendly people, but they are still strangers. People can pretend and they do pretend. Sometimes a grown-up might pretend to be a kid. So always remember Stranger Danger and be care­ful.

• Take everything said in chat rooms lightly. After all you never know if what is being said is the truth or not.

• Many people mistakenly think that they are com­pletely anonymous while they are surfing the Net. They don't realise just how easy it is to link someone's ad­dress or online identity with a real person in the real world. So don't give out your surname, phone number, home address or school (college, university) and any other personal information that can be used to track you down.

• If you are asked for a screen name or need to use a name to play a game, use a nickname, never use your real name.

• Passwords are secret and should stay that way. Never tell anyone what it is. Try not to use names of family or pets as they are easy to guess. A mix of numbers and letters is best.

• Beware of people who change their details many times. If they can't make up their minds who they are, how can they be trusted?

• Meeting people you have chatted to over the Internet is extremely risky. Even when the date is arranged in a public place or with friends accompanying, it can still be dangerous.

WHY DO TEENS DO IT?

I chat all the time. My friends and I do it because we're bored a lot.

Natasha M., 15, Russia

Chat rooms are great! You can talk to lots of people at the same time. You can exchange views and ideas. And you can make up so much about yourself.

Jeremy B., 17, UK

I manage to multi-task: I'm typing a history essay while I'm listening to music while I'm checking my e-mail while I'm following the banter in a chat room.

John T., 18, USA

Bad things about chat rooms are people who lie all the time. Like, "Honest, I'm 14". Except I'm a 55-year-old bald man named Malcolm.

Jane S., 14, UK

I've got a lot of Internet boyfriends. They sometimes ask me out, but I just say no because I think they are fake.

Kate B., 15, Ukraine

I find the Internet really useful with my schoolwork and catching up with my friends... plus chat rooms are a really fab way of making friends in different countries. But I don't give out where I live, except maybe the city. And I don't give out my name, my telephone number, my address, anything personal that would let people contact me anywhere except online.