Chat Rooms, Social and Linguistic Processes in

When face-to-face communication takes place, there is co-presence: The participants are in the same place at the same time, using both speech and nonverbal messages to make themselves understood. Those communicating in computer-mediated chat, or online chat, on the other hand, are separated geographically but logged in simultaneously to a virtual chat room. They are making themselves understood by typing messages quickly onto a keyboard; online chatters alternate rapidly, and the chat program shows the successive contributions on the computer screen. Online chat is written conversation. Like face-to-face conversations, it can take place as a dialogue or in a group.

The term chat room usually applies to webchat, in which chat rooms are accommodated on Web servers and can be used by means of a Web browser; a chat room is basically nothing but a window appearing on the screen. There are also graphical chat systems in which the chatters can move as avatars (graphical representations like cartoon characters or photos) through a pictorial scene such as a living room or forest or discotheque (the Palace at http://www.palacetools.com is an example). Although there are many chat rooms with unrestricted topics, basically for small talk (off-topic chat rooms), others are dedicated to particular themes, target groups, or purposes, which are usually clear from the name adopted for the room (on-topic chat rooms).

Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is communication made possible through networks of servers that allow group communication in discussion forums called channels. The processes of communication in webchats are often difficult to capture for documentation purposes, but those in IRC channels can be automatically logged on the IRC “client” (the program used to connect to the server). As a consequence, sociological and linguistic studies of the chat process relate in many cases to IRC. However, the results are normally transferable to webchatting.

According to a Pew Internet & American Life Project study described by Lenhard, Rainie, and Lewis, more than half the 12-to-17-year-old Internet users in the United States (55%) were users of chat rooms in 2001; the figure for adult users was about a quarter, at 26%. Male and female teenagers are equal in their love of chatting. It is more common for the 15–17 age group to chat than for the 12–14 age group. The figure for those visiting a chat room among young people using the Internet daily is as high as 62%. Although chatting is less common among North American teenagers than email (used by 92%), it is still more popular than creating one's own homepage (24%). For individual countries, the chatter statistics require separate analysis.