When Action News 'chatroulleted' with 18-year-old Hannah from Vermont, she said most of her connections had less talent and less clothing than expected.
It is pretty clear that this kind of webcam interaction is quickly becoming a hot trend in social networking. There are already clones of Chatroulette like, JayDoe, Zupyo, Camcarousel.com and Omegle.com
Psychiatrist Dr. Joseph Garbely, says social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and twitter have posed some danger because you're often sharing personal information with people you don't know, or don't know very well, and now adding a live visual element, things get even more dicey.
"When you get into the video portion, suddenly you enter into someone's living room or bedroom and you start to see them as a person; people take more liberties with that as they feel more comfortable, they can expose more and more of themselves," Dr. Garbely said.
Garbely says the randomness and anonymity of these sites attracts social deviant behavior.
The problem arises when the behavior exchanged on these sites isn't consensual, and because there are no boundaries or policing of Chatroulette and many other social sites, it's hard to protect minors who often feel a lot of peer pressure to keep up with everything from the newest social networking site to the hottest online game.
Policing these sites is very, very difficult if not impossible, especially a site like Chatroulette, which is in its infancy.
It's hard as a parent, as wel, because there are constantly new sites and networks popping up that may not be sensitive to parental controls. Make sure if you have kids in the house, they don't have access to a computer without your supervision and if you're an adult, consider yourself warned.
Warning: Clicking this link will take you to Chatroulette and as described above, the visuals may be disturbing.
LINK: http://chatroulette.com/
