The "chat for all ages" phenomenon

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ArtsieSteph

ArtsieSteph

Senior Member
Apr 1, 2014
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So I had an interaction with a person online recently, specifically on another chat called discord. I was talking about art, and it turns out it was a 14 year old kid. Usually I'm fairly respectful to everyone, but for some reason when he started taking to me after a while I told him "I tend to try not to direct message younglings" and said goodbye and quickly closed the chat. The kid opened it up and asked me why, and I said it wouldn't be proper for an adult to private message a child and closed it again. I feel like it was better I cut that communication immediately, but I think I was rude.

The question is, what would you do in that situation? I mean cutting off that communication was needed, but is there a more graceful way to do it? Could I have been a mentor? Who knows.
 
I have no problem with PM'ing kids since I think we all know our PM's are fully open and available to be read by the mods at any time. Now, e-mailing is something else entirely.
 
Oh no this wasn't on this chat, it was a different chat. On here like you said they can read them, but I think I'd still be uncomfortable
 
Yeah, I would do the same thing, if I was older. I don't want his parents to be at my door with pitchforks if they find out that their boy was chatting to some unknown female on the Internet...
 
ArtsieSteph said:
So I had an interaction with a person online recently, specifically on another chat called discord. I was talking about art, and it turns out it was a 14 year old kid. Usually I'm fairly respectful to everyone, but for some reason when he started taking to me after a while I told him "I tend to try not to direct message younglings" and said goodbye and quickly closed the chat. The kid opened it up and asked me why, and I said it wouldn't be proper for an adult to private message a child and closed it again. I feel like it was better I cut that communication immediately, but I think I was rude.

The question is, what would you do in that situation? I mean cutting off that communication was needed, but is there a more graceful way to do it? Could I have been a mentor? Who knows.
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I think you handled it right because, even though you wouldn't have ulterior motives, a lot of adults would have and no one knows until it's too late. Children shouldn't PM strangers online because it's dangerous and adults need to be careful because if something were to happen to that child, say he/she felt close enough to someone online to set up a personal meeting and that person turned out to be some kind of creep, the police would be looking at everyone that seemed even slightly suspicious. An adult PMing a child would look suspicious, even if the adult never meant any harm and never talked about inappropriate topics. Even if you did nothing, your name and picture could be placed in the news, and your social and professional life would be over over something you never did.
 
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