What Parents Should Know About Stickam
Video communities are popping up all over the Web. Stickam is one such community, but with more features than I’ve seen of late. Translation for parents: for the most part, it’s just another place for people to post video and photos of themselves doing things in the privacy of their own home that they wouldn’t dream of doing in public. Think MySpace, but with improved online interaction.
When reading their “What is Stickam?”, it talks about how you can place streaming video, music, and live video chat on your site or blog with relative ease. What I find interesting is that they’re not playing up what I think most teens would be most interested in and that’s the ability to login to chat rooms and interact with other people while actually viewing them via web cams.
It’s really almost like sitting across the table from someone and having a conversation with them — really boring conversation at times. Maybe I’m too old to see the value in such jabbering:
Austin: heyy sup ya’ll?
* lemonfrog joined the room.
my_squeaky: hey
* 19733 joined the room.
* patrick82803 joined the room.
vindicative: CHRIS
* Austin left the room.
vindicative: Whos calling me
* patrick82803 left the room.
* 19733 left the room.
revengexx: I HATE THAT MOVIE
revengexx: gawd tht was creepy
revengexx: IT WAS SCARY
punkface aka cupcake: no it was awsome
* prettypantsx left the room.
What do you think?
Keep in mind that you’re actually hearing other people talk while viewing others typing in their conversations just like regular chatting.
It was apparent that some of the participants that I viewed were teens in their bedrooms. That’s a big strike against the parents! Leaving a kid alone in their room with a computer connected to the Internet is not a good combination.
So what’s the harm in people getting together to discuss whatever crosses their minds? Well, what it comes down to is that Stickam is another place to see and be seen by others, which makes it a perfect place for sexual predators to go shopping. Parents need to be aware of places like this and talk to their child about it, should they have an interest in hanging out there.
While playing the innocent bystander in a chat room, I got kicked out for not participating. That was a surprise, but I do find that an interesting feature. Comparing it to offline interaction, it’s the equivalent of some stranger standing next to you listening in on your conversation. In retrospect, that probably seemed pretty rude of me to just “stand” there.
So what’s the take-away on this for parents? Quite simple, really: be careful when you let your kids visit places like Stickam. Chatting has it’s own risks, but when you add web cams to the mix, it opens new doors to places that may be hard to navigate. Like any site, but particularly with online communities, I recommend the parent review what it’s all about and then decide next steps.
[tags]stickam,web cams,online community[/tags]
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Comments
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I hadn’t heard of that site and definately wouldn’t want kids visiting it. There is way to much worry about what sites kids are visiting and there should be, you never know who is out there. A good resource for parents of young internet users is http://www.netsmartz411.org. I really think parents should be completely involved when their children are surfing the web. Great Post!
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This is incredibly informative information. I had no idea this was available to teenagers. You are providing a great service here. Thank you!
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I Myself am a teen (yes I know this is an old post), to be honest stickam is one of the worst chat sites for predators, however I strongly disagree about your view of computers in teenagers rooms, Preteens, alright I can go with that but if it’s an issue for your teen to have a computer in their room either the parents or the teen has some issues. I personally have bought my own computers since I was 12 yes I’ve watched porn but if you make it to 19 without having done so then something is wrong. It’s just part of growing up, like masturbation. As far as Stickam itself goes yes there are predators, yes they are persuasive and it is one thing that I would block if I had children just because of how many videos there are of teens and preteens taking dares that lead to more illicit activities.
@TwinnedChimera
Thanks for taking the time to post here and welcome to Family WebWatch!
Your point about computers in a teen’s room is well taken, but something we’ll have to agree to disagree on. 
I’m not suggesting that all teens are going to be irresponsible, of course, but it’s easy to imagine how tempting it would be to do those “illicit” things when hidden from parental eyes.
there are many online videos community. It’s very hard to find anything very secure for teenagers. That’s where I think parent role and make sure their teenage children are not the victim of those sexual predators. This is really a good topic you brought up in here.
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