Some, their youthful fantasies fired by cyber versions of the romance novel, are looking for love. Others, often the offspring of one-child families, just want someone their own age to talk to.

While some educators worry about the hours that are being diverted from studies or even worse - abuse and exploitation by older chatters - website companies have been quick to mine this lucrative new market.

The young “eyeballs” that view the web ads are associated with little fists that carry a significant wad of after-school spending money for sodas, fast foods, clothing and music.

“I felt lonely at home, and after borrowing the best-selling cyber novel ‘First Intimate Touch’ from my classmate, I became interested in seeking a virtual friendship,” said Shi, an only child.

When some of the boys she met in the chat rooms hinted at romance, Shi became apprehensive, deciding that at her age she’d better keep things platonic.

But she did say she learned a lot about fashion and the latest trends from her new-found online friends, an outcome Internet marketeers will be happy to hear about.

While an accurate figure for the number of young cyber chatters was not available, it is sure to add up to tens of thousands, perhaps more.

Thanks to the increasing prevalence of Internet access in Shanghai homes, more than 9 percent of the city’s 1.8 million net users are under 16, according to a recent survey by the city office of the Communist Youth League of China.

The daily teen-ager flow at netbig.com is about 1,000. Response has been so strong that the website even opened a special corner dedicated to talking about emotions.

At UE100, which caters to middle-school students, daily chat room attendance is 80.

And around 100 teen-agers enter the chat rooms of Rongshu.com daily, which adds fuel to the fire by providing original literature, some of it romantic. The site overall has attracted more than 2.6 million page views daily, 10 percent of which are high-school age visitors.

“Youngsters are using chat rooms to discuss the problems they encounter in study and life,” said Wang Jue, who organized the Youth League survey.

And some are getting swept away as they become caught up in emotional exchanges.

Police reported recently that a 15-year-old girl left her home in Yantai, Shandong Province, carrying more than 100,000 yuan (US$12,048) from a family account to meet her cyber prince in Suzhou, Jiangsu Province. Officers stopped her mid-trip and sent her back home.

“Making friends online shouldn’t mean getting caught in crossfire, but we have to prevent the young from going to extremes in the name of love,” said Song Zhengguo, a psychologist at East China Normal University. “Teachers and parents need to promote an awareness for self-protection among the young people who use the chat rooms.”

Asked about her daughter’s online missives, Shi’s mother, Yang Zhongwei, expressed a relaxed attitude, seeing little difference between the pen pals she made in her youth and today’s chatters: “I look back on that part of my life with sweet memories.”

(eastday.com 11/09/2000)