Observation of Chatroom

On 26th January 2006, we had our tutorial session in Lab D, FSSK.
However, half of the computers there were not functioning therefore, most of us had to share computers.
The task on that day was to get ourselves into any chatroom and participate in the chatting while observing the language, colours and fonts the chatters used.


I joined the yahoo chatroom which requires its chatters to own a yahoo id.
Its URL is http://chat.yahoo.com/.
The Yahoo chatrooms are divided into 18 categories which are
Businessess & Finance, Computers & Internet, Cultures & Community, Entertainment & Arts, Family & Home, Games, Government & Politics, Health & Wellness, Hobbies & Crafts, Movies, Music, Recreation & Sports, Regional, Religion & Beliefs, Romance, Schools & Education, Science and Voice Chat.

I joined the Games chatroom. The chatters in the chatroom didn't take notice of me although i said hello, hi, hie many times. The chatters were engrossed in their conversation with other chatters that were in the chatroom earlier. However i did get a couple of private messages asking me to play a game with them. But, time isn't on my side, cause by the time the fella want to start the pool game, my chatroom session has ended.

From my observation while i was in the Yahoo Games chatroom, i found that the chatters uses various fonts, font sizes and colours for their messages. The colours they used varied from a single colour to rainbow-like colours. The colour of their message function as an attention getter to get other chatters attention and to differentiate themselves. I also notice that they do not use much short forms execpt for the usual ones such as u=you, LOL=Laughing Out Loud, the of smileys are not seen at all however, there are ocassional use of emoticons such as :), :P and :D. The use of code switches also didn't occur.

But, if i observe chatting in messengers such as the Yahoo or MSN messenger. The use of code switch, emoticons, smileys and short forms are common.

For example:

In conclusion, chatting in international chatroom is a good way to interact with people from various ages, personality and nationality. However, don't be suprise if the chatters who PM you starts sending naughty messages.

Wherelse, messengers are more personal and one to one mode with more colours and animations.