by Mckayla Hollis

Created on: June 15, 2009

It takes all sorts to make up the Internet. From gamers and bloggers to business people and forum members, the Internet is its own diverse community of strangers brought together by a common feature: the social networking scene.

I am a part of Facebook. There's a good chance that any student reading this article is also a member of Facebook, or Myspace, or Bebo or Twitter or any other of the hundreds of social networking sites available to Internet users.

In fact, I doubt I have more than five friends who do not use a social networking site to keep in touch.

While I was preparing to leave for college, one of my greatest fears was losing touch with my very best friend in the whole world. I knew I wouldn't have time to call her and talk for a few hours every day like we had in high school, and visiting each other at our respective colleges would be too hard while neither of us had cars on campus. Within a week of leaving, it became apparent that our worries were in vain. Nearly every day there was a wall post or e-mail in my Facebook inbox from her, and through pictures and videos we were able to show each other what our new lives were like. We were able to stay in touch and continue with a friendship that might otherwise have become more distant had it not been for Facebook.

Some might argue that college students spend far too much time on these social networking sites. In some cases this may be true.

My best friend goes to college with a girl who has been known to change her Facebook status 26 times in one day. While this is excessive, bordering on obsessive, the majority of students have their habits under control.

Not only do students use these networks to keep in touch with friends and classmates, adults do as well.My mother has a Facebook, and uses it to find her classmates from elementary school through college and beyond. It makes her whole day to get a message from her childhood next-door neighbor or her first crush in middle school.

Social networks are helping people from all over the world stay connected. I have good friends in Germany and Ireland who I would rarely be able to speak to if it were not for these networks and forums. I believe that these sites are helping to unite people all over the world in ways, which were not previously possible.

Through Facebook I have contacted friends from preschool and other countries, I have stayed in touch with high school friends, I have arranged surprise parties, kept track of relationships, connected with my siblings while away at college and flirted with romantic interests from afar.

Social networking sites make our lives easier and more entertaining in our down time. I'm glad to be a part of my network.

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