| Why Chat?
The chatrooms are where overweight kids and
teens can share their ups and downs, share tips, and support each other. |
| Old
Teens and PreTeens Chatrooms |
| The old chatrooms work with simple web machines like WebTV, or with computers without Java, or with parental controls. The old chatrooms show the previous chatting, but you can not tell if anyone is still in the room. So, don't be offended if no one answers your message. Even though you still see the messages, everyone may have left. But you can send a message to see if anyone is still there, and if not, your message will remain for the next person who enters the room. Below is a sample of the old teens chatroom. |
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| New Chatroom |
| The new chatroom lets you see
who is in the room, but when you enter the room you do not see the
previous chatting. The new chatroom requires a full computer
with a software called Java, which most computers have, or you may
download Java for free. If you have any problems using our chatroom, please check the Chatroom Connection Help page.
In the new chat room you can chat as group in the main chat area as shown below: |
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To do a private chat with someone, just double click on the person's name in the list on the the right of the main window, and a small private chat window will appear as shown above. Why are chats better than email? The advantage of the chatroom over email is that you don't have to expose your email address, like on the bulletin board, so you don't get a lot of junk emails. And chatting is much faster than email. You can also come into the chatroom and just watch if you want. You don't have to say anything if you don't want to. This is called "lurking", and a lot of kids do that. How do you find people in the chatroom? You can arrange to meet someone in the chatroom at a certain time, by posting a message on the bulletin board, for example. The World Time Converter under the chat window can help you to arrange a meeting time with someone in another time zone. Or you can simply go into the chatroom and wait for someone else to show up. The best times to find people in the chatrooms are in the late afternoon and early evening. A common meeting time is 5-9 PM eastern USA time. Even though kids have been chatting, when you enter the new chatroom you will not see the previous chats. So, if you go into the chatroom and no one is there, please wait a little while before you leave. If everybody leaves as soon as they enter the chatroom, then everybody misses everybody else. Tip: You can surf the web while waiting for other people to show up in the chatroom. Just open two copies your Internet browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Netscape, Safari, AOL) and wait in the chatroom on one copy while you surf on the other. And if you find someone in the chatroom and they don't reply to you, they are probably surfing. Wait a minute or two, and they will come back to check the room. Sample Chats Below are links to sample chats between Lucy RD and kids in the chat room. Lucy meets with kids every Wednesday evening. These are snippets from just a few of the actual transcriptions from over five years of weekly chats.
Slip-Ups |
