Randy: I communicate online pretty much through Facebook.
Renee: My main way of communicating with my friends is over texting, and a little bit
of email and a little bit of Skype. Aseal: I like to use games to connect to people
online. Randy: So when I accept a friend on Facebook,
I primarily look at mutual friends, or maybe I'll be in Spanish class one day and some
kid I've never even met before will look at my Facebook and then we might become friends.
Aseal: Well friend list works on Xbox Live sort of like Facebook, where you can send
an receive friend requests from people you may know or don't know, and I mostly like
to add people that I do know. Renee: The way I get people's numbers is usually
from school or if they put their number in my phone before hanging out.
Randy: My interactions with people that I don't really know usually consists of me not
really paying attention to their Facebook as much until I sort of get to know who they
are. Maybe in one of my classes or things like that.
Aseal: If none of my friends are online, I'm mostly just gonna play a random game, and
I don't really have the intent to find a friend online.
Renee: When I was 11 I first got a Skype, and it was the first time using it and some
random person wanted to be my friend. Randy: There was one time on Facebook where
I kind of felt uncomfortable, it was a kind of an awkward situation.
Aseal: One awkward moment I've had online was, I was playing in a game.
Randy: This guy who I've never met before had some name in a different language that
I've never seen before, and he kept on adding me over and over again.
Renee: So I accepted and they started to talk to me, and they asked for my age and I said
11, and they said, oh I'm 12 and where do you live.
Aseal: They were just using a lot of vulgar language I guess, and trash talking a lot,
and it was mostly directed towards me. Renee: So they started talking to me asking
a lot of questions about me, and before I started asking questions about them. And so
my mom got really freaked out about it, which looking back on it now I can really understand
why she got freaked out about that, because I did not know the person at all.
Aseal: If you're, just say, online and someone's harassing you, mostly you can just don't really
have to take it 'cause the guy is maybe 50-100 miles away. Or you can just turn off your
mic, just leave the game. Randy: If you ever find yourself in an uncomfortable
situation, my advice is just to, if someone's harassing you or something like that, just
stop talking to them. Just don't listen to what they're saying and just ignore them.
Renee: When you know something's off when you're on Skype or texting, you kind of get
this weird feeling like this doesn't really seem right, I don't think I should be doing
this. And when you get that feeling that you should definitely shut off your computer or
say goodbye on your texting, or just don't respond at all.
Aseal: Well if you're just starting playing an online game, try not to make your name
your actual name in real life, and don't give out any home address or phone number.
Renee: A cool aspect of being able to communicate with people that you don't know or like not
close friends, is that you can get to know them better and maybe you can see their interest
and what they want to do, and become actual friends with them.
Randy: I have some good friends who are from Redwood, who I play basketball with, and I
kind of got to know them a little bit better after we had a game. And I kind of liked their
personality and we started talking on Facebook, now we're friends in real life.
Aseal: I talk to people from Qatar, or England or something. It helps me to just to see,
like get out of my little social box I guess, of where I live and helps me see other places
around the world and what it's like to live in other places.
Randy: I think it really depends on who you're talking to, because if you're really close
to someone and you know them, and you're just kind of exchanging cute little messages or
something like that it's not really an issue, but when it comes to talking to people you
don't really know well, and you haven't really talked to in person,
you never know how they're going to react and what kind of person they are, and if you
really want to be talking to them, because you haven't had a conversation with them in
person. Whereas the same time it's great because you could make a connection that you wouldn't
have made otherwise. So you really gotta judge the situation day to day, and you know see
what's best for you.