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Teens on the Net, a whole new lifestyle
By Tantri Yuliandini
JAKARTA (JP): Only a few years ago, when a girl between 15 to 17 years
old was asked about her hobbies, you could expect answers like
"reading, swimming or hanging out with friends."
Nowadays, "chatting" is increasingly becoming the most popular
response to that question.
The dictionary defines "chat" as "light familiar talk". But in the
context of the teenager, it runs through the medium of the Internet,
not the schoolyard or behind the teacher's back.
The Internet has revolutionized the way people think and act in more
ways than we could imagine. And as with all new technologies, the
young are the ones that quickly adapting to it.
To think of all the benefits that could be reaped from the Internet,
chatting has now become the most popular application besides
electronic mail or e-mail.
So when you think your sons or daughters are hard at work doing their
homework on the PC, check on the modem -- they might just be shooting
messages into cyberspace.
Internet chat has even given us a practical and cheaper way to
communicate in minutes to people hundreds of kilometers away.
With Internet chat, making friends with complete strangers has
suddenly become the easiest thing in the world to do. Gone are the
usual inhibitions, the shyness, the awkward silences, the lack of
self-confidence that usually accompany meeting new people.
And at an Internet chat room, popularly known here as a "channel",
dozens of people with more-or-less the same interests are brought
together to chat.
"Hi asl?" (Hi age, sex, location?) flashed a pop-up message on a
computer screen.
"Ok 13/f/hell =P u?" (Ok 13/female/hell) came the reply. (=P is a
sideways-on sign that denotes a coy facial expression).
":-X 16/m want 2 talk 2 me?" the little window flashed again. (In
using :-X, the respondent has given a sideways-on symbol of a pouting
face).
Chatrooms are sprouting like leaves on a tree.
Especially bolstered by the many Internet kiosks dotted across the
capital -- most prominently near schools and universities -- local
chatrooms are growing in number, especially on the more popular chat
engines such as MiRC and Yahoo!Chat.
The easy access and affordable prices available at warnet (Internet
kiosks) have made the kiosks popular hangouts for teens chatting up a
storm.
Chatrooms can be as global or as local as the author makes them. There
is an "Indonesia" chatroom, as well as "Jakarta" and "Bandung"
chatrooms.
Specific communities have their own special rooms, such as
"parkirtimur", for those who frequent the eastern parking lot of
Senayan sports complex, and "sobatpadi" for fans of the popular
Indonesian band Padi.
Nuniek and Kemal, two teenagers who like to chat at the Station Net
Internet kiosk at Blok M Plaza, said they most often use the "bc.bar"
chatroom, a room named after their favorite hangout place, the BC Bar,
in Central Jakarta.
In fact the "bc.bar" chatroom was where they first met and later
became friends.
"But I only met her when the chatroom members organized a gathering
last week," Kemal said, explaining that many local chatrooms organize
gatherings outside cyberspace so that the members can also socialize
in person.
"It's given me a whole new set of friends," Nuniek explained.
Some find the love of their life in chatrooms, where they meet,
converse and later date off-line.
And because of the global nature of the Internet, the scope for
finding a potential mate is not limited to your own neighborhood.
Wulan, a 27-year-old employee, met her Indian boyfriend while chatting
on Yahoo!Chat. Three months later the man visited her in Indonesia and
they started going steady.
"Marriage may seem far off for us, but we keep in touch either by
e-mail or mostly by chatting," she said.
Long distance relationships have become a lot more common now that
people can meet over the Net.
Although the problems faced by such relationships remain the same,
mainly over communications, the solutions are sometimes a little
unique.
"An American girl once asked me to call her Indonesian boyfriend for
her to find out why he hadn't chatted with her for two weeks," Wulan
said.
It turned out the boyfriend had gone down with measles and couldn't
log on.