“You can meet tons of new people from all over the world!”
Now that sounds enticing! Until your friend adds, “and if you see someone’s genitals we can just skip to the next person… so don’t worry.” That was the part that concerned me too.
Chatroulette is an internet site that allows you to video chat with random people, anywhere across the world, in live time. When either user wants to leave the conversation, they can simply click a button to skip to the next random person. This may sound like the best new way to meet genuine, whole-hearted people from all over the globe, and I admit it sounds catchy, but I promise you there are more pleasant ways to meet people! Please just try striking up a conversation with a student in your class because if you try Chatroulette and see your fair share of horrors, you will have to understand the hard way too.
As soon as you enter this site to meet people, you are actually slammed with the most twisted chats imaginable; you will see anything from masturbation to images of death. This site may have started as a good idea, but the creators could not possibly calculate how disturbed and horrible people can actually be.
I find it amazing what privacy, combined with the internet, can do to the human mind. Does this Web site bring out the worst in us, or is this how humanity really behaves when they know their crimes will go unpunished? Do those masturbating individuals find exhibitionism sexually gratifying, or do they just do it because it’s what everyone does?
Either way, people today seem to be oddly content with sites like Chatroulette being active. You can attempt to find friendship through this process, and if you do manage to meet a friend then I truly applaud your efforts. Sadly, I have tried meeting and talking with others on this Web site but after my experience, I am tallying Chatroulette under the “one giant leap backwards for man kind” section.
Matt Rosen is a junior majoring in human and social development and psychology. He may be reached at mrosen@themiamihurricane.com.