Though I understand that everyone wants to have friends, I am tried of hearing about social networking online. Places like Myspace are very popular, and you may find people with hundreds of friends.

The word “friends” might give someone a false sense of popularity although these people are not really friends with anyone. People don’t care about others yet they rack up high number of friends online, which seems strange to me.

Social networking should be a little more personal. I don’t have many on my Myspace list, and that is because I only add people that I know. There are a few people that I admire but don’t know on my list, but that is only about two of them. The rest are people that I know in person, or have known elsewhere online for a while.

They aren’t strangers, and I know each of them by name and could tell you a lot about them. My idea of social networking is to find people I have a lot in common with, and then form real friendships.

I know everyone just likes something new, and if this type of social networking makes them happy, then I’ll go for it as well. You should realize that when it comes down to knowing who your real friends are, you can probably count only a few.

Friendship is something that grows, and is not something that happens just because you click ‘accept’ when you get a friend request. Social networking should be about more than numbers.

There are many other of these social networking sites out there, but none are quite as popular as Myspace. I have heard about Face Book, but I have never seen the site or had any reason to do so. It took me quite a while to sign up for Myspace, and I only did that at the urging of friends. I guess perhaps I am too old to be excited about this form of social networking.

I would think if it is still around when my daughter gets older, she will want to try it. I know that I will let her, but I will also keep a very close eye on everything she does whether she likes it or not. I know there are dangers, and no matter what they do to make is safer, those nasty people out there will find ways around it. Parental control is the only thing you can count on.

Article by Van T and read more about him here