Enter the World of Chatroulette

Have you ever wanted to chat with random strangers from across the world?

Well, now you can.

The website Chatroulette was launched by 17-year-old Russian high school student Andrey Ternovskiy on Nov. 7, 2009. The website connects two people at random who log onto the site and allows them to chat via webcam and instant messaging.

When Ternovskiy was looking for a web site that would enable him to use his webcam to chat with strangers, Ternovskiy came up empty handed, according to an interview with the New York Times. As a result, Ternovskiy decided he would create a site for people like him who seek to have conversations with random people. The high school student believed that people would be interested in this website because it's a fun activity to do with friends, and as it turns out, he was right.

The website has over 30 million viewers daily. Chatroulette is a hit, even with students at Jamesville-DeWitt High School.

"My friends and I go on it as a joke," says senior Ashley Potter. "It's fun to see the types of people that pop up on your screen." Instead of playing board games or watching television, groups of friends are now getting together on weekends to go on the Chatroulette website.

Although it can be an enjoyable experience, Potter says she would never go on it by herself. "The people on there can be very creepy. I would never go on if I wasn't with a friend."

One of the friends Potter logs on to Chatroulette with is Melissa Oberferst. "I do it every night before I go to bed!" says Oberferst, a senior at J-DHS.

Not only does Chatroulette attract teenagers, but also an older crowd. It is common to come across groups of guys in dorm rooms with nothing better to do on a Friday night. "When I visited Cortland a bunch of people I was staying with ended a long night out on Chatroulette," says Rachel Smith, a senior at J-DHS. As Smith witnessed, people find it especially entertaining to "drunkroulette:" to be intoxicated while on Chatroulette.

This website may seem like a fun time; however, just like anyone social-networking website, there is a downside. Chatroulette allows anyone to chat, which means there is no way to prevent minors or sexual predators from logging on. "I used to go on Chatroulette with my friends for fun," says Dylan Lobdell, a J-DHS senior, "but one time I came across a five-year-old boy. I thought that was really messed up and I haven't gone on it since." The website does have a button to report those users people find inappropriate. If a report is made about a person, they are suspended from entering the site for a period of 10 minutes. Although it suspends a user, it is only a temporary fix and doesn't permanently resolve the vulgarity of Chatroulette. For now, there have been no reports of sexual assault cases in connection with the Chatroulette website, but only time will tell.

As days go by the website is gaining more and more visitors, even attracting celebrities such as P. Diddy, Paris Hilton, Perez Hilton, Nicole Richie and Joel Madden. Ternovskiy is currently looking to expand the website, searching for more investors. The future of Chatroulette looks very promising; however, with the Internet these days, it's truly a game of roulette.