Let me first clear the basic doubt that people have about chat rooms. Virtual chat rooms are nothing but online forums where a lot of people can talk to one another, at the same time, without disclosing their identity. The people can live anywhere in the world, as the geographic positioning of the person does not affect the chatting at all. A person in the United States can talk to a person from India in one chat room. All you need today to access these rooms is - the Internet. Though you need to know some ethical and good chat rooms, you can always check and decide for yourself. These chat rooms indeed have a lot of advantages, more than what we usually assume. Listed below, are just a few of them. The Advantages The first and most basic advantage of a chat room, is that your physical presence isn't required for you to talk to someone. This advantage is obvious from the word virtual itself. Another advantage is the exchange of free information. Most chat rooms don't charge you any extra money for talking to people, for any length of time. In some chat rooms, you can also play games like scrabble and cricket, while you can continue talking to people at the same time. You don't only increase your social circle by social networking through these chat rooms, but sometimes you also make some really good friends. The best part about these chat rooms is that you have an option of using usernames of your choice. This means, you can hide your actual identity if you wish. And then not to forget, you can kill some boring time with this interesting option of virtual chatting. Virtual Chat Rooms: ...for Kids Online chat rooms for kids aren't very different from the usual chat rooms. However, since not many kids would like to talk to people more than double their age, there is a categorization according to age. Once you enter the main chat portal, you will find a number of chat rooms within. These will have age groups given, and you can enter the one that includes yours. One different thing about chat rooms for kids is that there are many game applications which are usually of no interest to teenagers or older people. A few years ago, a new concept was introduced. This was called '3D virtual chat rooms', where you can actually chat as a 3D character. In simple language, instead of your usual name, you can also make a 3D character for yourself and dress it the way you want. Though kids should be taught about identifying good virtual chat rooms, there isn't usually a problem if you stick to the most famous ones. ...for Teenagers These chat rooms are again almost the same. When you enter a 'virtual chat room application', you will see a number of chat rooms with names such as 'Chat Room (15 to 17)' or something similar. If you are a teenager, you can enter one of these, as all the people of your age will be usually chatting there. Apart from this, the games in these chat rooms are more complex, such as poker or maybe blackjack, which again can be played with the person you are talking to. Most people usually enter these chat rooms in search of a date, so kids should ideally stay away. You can dedicate songs and use the 'web cam facility' if you have already disclosed your identity (or not). Some chat rooms also allow 5-6 people to talk in the same window with the 'Conference Chat' option. ...That Are Free Globally, most chat rooms today are free. Yahoo! is one of these famous free online chat rooms. Facebook also has a virtual chat room, but there you need to add the person as a 'friend' and only then can you chat with him/her, that too only one person in one window. However, if you play the games on Zynga, such as Poker, you can chat there with people all around the world, without disclosing your identity to them. Very seldom does one have to pay to chat. This happens only when the applications and services provided to you by the chat room, are really one of a kind and need to be accessed after some payment. This was some basic information on virtual chat rooms, as detailed information will vary and differ according to different companies and virtual chat room providers. You need to be very careful when you are talking to someone on the Internet as you don't actually know the person, and you might end up giving some personal details. Last but not the least, kids should always access these chat rooms under parental guidance.