Written by Mahathir Ahamad & Yusof Zulkefli
Internet is very important in this modern day. Everyone will be connected to the internet and engage in with cyber community worldwide. Somehow, internet would rather become such an important role in any sector such as business, academic, economy, even in a tiny organization, as any process can be done in one click.
However, the internet has changed the way people communicate. Most of the users have misused the usage of the internet. This can be seen with the emergence of unnecessary site or service provider on the internet such as chat room and match-maker services, which its prior function is just to enhance communication process. The existence of chat room and match-maker services is very harmful. There are very serious consequences when irresponsible users joint certain chat rooms. Some people decide to meet strangers online, while others go on a dating service and so forth, but behind everything, they convey double meaning action that sometimes could leads to a serious problem such as pornographic.
After having video sex, the probability to spread the recording video is higher. This is happened because internet can provide so many things for social interact. There are so many types of chat room had been appeared and most importantly, sex is the most popular topic to be discussing (Mills and Russell, 1998).
Most of the online researcher such as Griffiths and Mark (2001) and Mills and Russell (1998) stated that, most of the user who meet online in chit chat room normally will engage the line in cyber-sexual activities. According to them, statistic shows that, there are 10 countries with free sex culture. And there are starts with Greece, Brazil Russia, China, Poland, Italy, Malaysia, Spain, Switzerland, and Mexico. The free sex culture here can be seen the way of internet users will only seraching for their partner through online and make them as a partner or escorting them.
Usually, men will use this alternatives while there are travelling for a vacation and so forth. Chat rooms are the electronic counterpart of singles bars. People who are trying to find new partner or to escort them to a special place will use this medium to find someone they like and fulfil their desire (Internet Society, 2014). Other than that, the most crucial problem regarding the free sex culture based on the chat room and match-maker services on internet lead to the fraud of baby dumping.
In 2008 and 2009, the baby dumping cases dropping from 102 cases to 79 cases, but the number had increased to 91 in 2010 and 98 in 2011. But, Malaysian government believed that, the figure is just a number being reported whilst there still have so many cases just disappeared or undetected (Wen, 6 July 2012). Baby dumping in Malaysia is a very serious issues need to be settled.
Teenagers are one of the groups seen to be involved in this situation. Their online routines which involve cyber relationship could turn into sex-motive relationship that contains erotic’s sense and could lead to cybersex. This can be look through their text-based communications, which later on would involve masturbation or any forms of erotic actions (Griffiths and Mark, 2001).
When discuss about free sex culture among the teenagers or even among adult, we cannot deny that friends are the most influencing people who will be persuaded us to something that we know we shouldn’t be doing. Arnett ( 2010), suggest that there’s relationship between the rates of risk in behaviours that the adolescent report for themselves and the rates they report for their collegue.
In the case of chat room and match maker services in internet, as the teenegers grows up, they would like to be love and establishing intimacy. However they do not know where to start because seme of them are very shy to create a conversation virtually face to face with thier ‘love-to-be’. Thus chat rooms and match maker services in internet is the best way to then to get what they want.
Young adults, these days are loooking for more intimate relationship and love to share any informations with their partner, yet, this intentions will be based on no string attached basis, This can be explain by Schaie Sherry (1996):
…the need for an intimate relationship may present certain problem. Typically young adults have just attained independence from their parents, and they struggling to understand who they are as unique human beings. The need for intimacy runs counter to these indentity and independence needs (Schaie & Sherry, 1996).
Hence, most of the young adults will share their desire among their friend, thus at this stage friends will play their roles in influencing others. The result is due to the concept of egocentrism, which determine their tendencies to accept the similarity between themselves and their peers, contradict with the case that abolish the correlations in the risk behaviour that they report for themselves and their friends (Arnett, 2010)..
Melgosa (2000), argue that the family factor also increase the risk of the social problems among the teenagers or young adults. Alcoholic parents, parents with criminal record history, those who practice military-like parenting systems which are too strict and parents with marital issues could contribute to the children’s attitude.
The child’s social world, which begins within his family, progresses toward the outside world through relationship with his friends at school and in the neighbourhood. in most cases adolescents move their vital interest towards the immediate social environment and mainly fend for themselves in an area of mutual action and influence external to the family.
Talking about Social Networking Sites’ chat services and match maker community on internet, there are so many story really trigger the entire nation around the world. In Dubai for example, a man has been jailed for three years for having sex with a saleswoman, with whom he became friends over the internet, against her will (Za’za’, 27 April 2014). To related this situation with Users and Gratifications Theory, it has to be done with the intention to achieve their target or goals and one of them is to fulfill their sex desire.
Normally, the topic will be discussed in chat room is depend on the messages that been send from a user to another. But then, the most topics highlighted in this kind of interaction none other than sexually related information. Few people somehow, being enjoy portray themselves on the video chatting while carrying the sexual activities like masturbate or even make an erotic voice (Mills and Russell, 1998).
According to Young, Griffin-Shelley, Cooper, O’Mara, and Buchanan (2000) as quoted in Griffiths and Mark; Sex on the Internet: Observations and implications for Internet sex addiction define:
…an online relationship (a cyber affair) as a romantic and/or sexual relationship that is initiated via online contact and maintained predominantly through electronic conversations that occur through email and in virtual communities such as chat rooms, interactive games, or newsgroups.
Due to this issue, Yahoo has taken crucial decision, which is to disavow their chat room. The service has been taken out from their users and Yahoo have to payback any outstanding balance in their customer account before they shut it down on 30th January 2013 (Doke, 5th December 2012). The truth is behind the shutting down of this service lies in the television report where some user misused this service to ignite sexual encounters with children (Bray, 2005).
So many social and cultural implications may occur due to the bad users of chat room and match maker services from the internet. Normally, this will initiate pre-marital sexual intercourse. The implications, of course, an unwanted pregnancy that then will lead to abortion or baby dumping. This is could be happened because at first, when a person meet their ‘friend’ from chat room or match maker services from the internet, normally they will be tried to have sex with their partners because they would like to try anything that they never try before at this stage. Most of them have sex without using any safer tools such as condom to prevent pregnant. Statistic showed that baby dumping case has increase in the year 2010 and due to this a lot of question and curiosity has been brought up (The Star Online, 19 August 2010).
Another baby dumping furore in the news recently did little to surprise the socially-maligned Malaysians and recent statistics prove that the heinous nature of baby dumping makes no difference in preventing this crime as the numbers keep increasing year by year (Yesuiah, 1 October 2011).
This is against human rights. The issue of Baby dumping is happened everywhere around the world because of different factors leading to the problem. According to Federal CID Director, Datuk Seri Mohd Bakri Zinin said that from 2005 to January this year, a total of 517 baby dumping cases were registered in the country (The Malaysian Insider, 9 February 2011).
Generally this cases happened because they being trapped by ‘chat room’ lover or match maker services from the internet. Researchers have found out that, most of them is trying to accommadate to each other and fulfilling thier intimacy need. Free sex culture via chat room and match maker services in internet had become the new trend for the teenagers especially for meeting or finding partners and engaging in a fantasy world. (Griffiths & Mark, 2001).
We believe that an internet does provide serious effects to those who have potential to become sex offenders or sex maniacs. We could understand the symptoms such as excessive, addictive obsessive and compulsive behaviours could apply to this kind of people. Obviously, the resource on the internet has a significant impact to feed or to fuel other addictions or compulsions.
Chatting in a chat rooms or match maker services is not wrong. In some extend, it is a medium to a person to make new friends. But, a person itself must be very careful. Katz et al (2014), point out that in UGT, the users have the authority to choose the medium or media that they want to use on the purpose of escaping from daily routine or problems. The is no wrong or right to choose the media that they want. For instance communication trough chat room or match maker services is really fun and interesting because we can see so many people with their sweet talk promises so many things which sometimes it is rediculous.
Thus, as the media users in chat room or match maker services, we must be very brilliant enough to adapt with all of these things. Users must be very careful and read or listen carefully to what the other party or person said to ensure that we didn’t fall for any subliminal trap. Be alert and focus on any question given as this is crucial to avoid sexual trap and involve in any serious matter.
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