Chatroulette: A good time, or mistake?

Chatroulette is grasping the attention of college students across the country.

Meeting new people from all over the world sounds like an enticing and fun idea, but adding a new dimension of video to the online chat room can not only make online communication more exciting, it can also increase the danger of it.

Chatroulette is a Web site in which people have the ability to video chat with the first person that pops up onto their screen. What if that person is boring? No problem. Just click on the “next” button and a brand new person will appear on the computer screen.

Kylee Wasechek, a 20-year-old junior psychology major, said she uses the site and did an experiment with the users.

“You feel a pretty big sense of rejection when you get nexted,” Wasechek said.

Wasechek said that she tried an experiment with a male friend of hers to see whether males or females seem to get “nexted” more quickly on Chatroulette. She concluded that she got significantly fewer “nexts” than her male friend.

People are constantly warned by their peers, parents and teachers to be aware of what kind of Web sites they are exposing themselves to, and to avoid giving out too much personal information about themselves. This brings one to question if the Web site is a fun activity, or a breeding ground for Internet harassment and other crimes associated with online chat rooms, such as kidnapping and sexual harassment and assault.

“That is kind of sketchy,” said Hayley Proctor, a 21-year-old sophomore pre-journalism major. “Chatting with someone you don’t know is very unsettling…it seems kind of dangerous.”

Chatroulette has come to be known to display inappropriate actions on some of the chats screens including, but not limited to, sexual acts.

Ashley Tyrrell, an 18-year-old freshman English major, said the Web site could potentially be dangerous for children.

“A bunch of kids in my hall were doing it [Using Chatroulette] one night, and it kept coming up with nasty stuff,” Tyrrell said. “If a kid ran across the site, it’d be really scarring,”

The Web site also has an age minimum of 16 years to participate in an online chat, but has no security measures for enforcement. Erinn Francis, a 21-year-old junior integrative physiology major, said the site has options to ensure a safe video chat.

“The fact that they have a clean chat option is very good,” Francis said.

Wasechek and Francis argued that Chatroulette was safer than normal typing chat rooms because, “you can fake a chat, but you can’t fake a video.”

Although Chatroulette has some major drawbacks, some students can see the advantages of a Web site such as this one.

“If you’re really interested in travel, you can meet people from other countries and ask what it’s like [there],” Proctor said. “Like if you are interested in study abroad.”

Francis too, agreed that Chatroulette is fun which is why it’s so appealing.

“It allows you to talk to strangers, which I love to do,” Francis said.

John Francis, a 23-year-old junior psychology major, said the site has many good uses.

“It [Chatroulette] is an excellent way to expand ones social circle and/or lose faith in humanity,” John Francis said.

Contact CU Independent Staff Writer Nicole Zimbelman at [email protected].