MySpace profiles are for show offs

America's youth has looked past online gaming websites and the novelty of having e-mail addresses to the new and ever growing social network of MySpace. MySpace is a web site that enables users to create free personal profiles about themselves, post pictures of themselves and friends and provide personal information such as dating status and favorite pastimes. Users can choose background music, colors, animated patterns and any other creative touches they wish to add that include an HTML code. The result is a website featuring fountains of personal information about individuals who divulge the details of their lives for the world to see and abuse. A web site made with the purpose of helping people keep in touch with old friends and making new ones is causing teens to lose touch with social reality. MySpace lets teens forget how to act with their peers in person, face to face, and instead conditions them to socialize screen to screen.

According to an article written by Kimra McPherson for the San Jose Mercury News, MySpace currently has over 54 million users. According to an article written by Jesse James Garret for Business Week Online, the site gains 150,000 new users daily. Popularity has continued to grow not only among teens but among adults as well after Rupert Murdoch, also known as the "media manipulator" by the Center for American Progress, bought the website for half a billion dollars.

The problem with this web site is that instead of making online acquaintances and keeping in touch with real friends, users are making "fake friends," requesting to be friends with those they wish to be nosy about. Let's be real, to get to know someone better there are numerous methods of communication including picking up the phone to have a conversation, corresponding through text messages, or meeting in person to interact. It is common to see MySpace advocates prowl the pages of personal pictures of other users in a judgmental way, to decide how exciting and cool others' lives are usually focusing on the attractiveness of other users and their list of friends links. Users even have the opportunity to post comments about others' pictures that are shown right underneath the pictures for others to read. To some, it is a game to accumulate hundreds to thousands of friends most of whom they will never talk to outside of the website.

Facebook , a similar website founded by Mark Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes and Dustin Moskovitz at Harvard College in February of 2004, is available to college students all across the US. Facebook, unlike MySpace, actually requires one to be listed as "friends" with someone or attend the same school in order to view a profile. Recently Facebook has even extended its availability to those who have a high school email address to register. Facebook's homepage states that one can use Facebook to "Look up people around you, see how people know each other, and make groups and events with your friends." Some would argue that the idea of keeping in touch with those they once associated with in high school after leaving for college is a daunting task, and profiles such as Facebook are useful tools to do just that. If one needs a profile to send them a birthday reminder of a friend's upcoming birthday, is that person really worth keeping in touch with?

In an informal survey of 100 Blazers in April, 52 percent said they had a MySpace and or Facebook account. Blair has thousands of students who have the opportunity to meet and interact with peers within the walls of one building. It's ridiculous that this many people feel the need to create Internet profiles and show off their lives online.

Friends are the people who know your favorite band, the name of your significant other and what school you attend without reading it online. Deciding to get to know someone because of a picture is a shallow way to form friendships, and using online profiles to decide if someone is hot or not is a waste of time. If the purpose of creating an online profile is to remain in contact with old acquaintances, there are many other ways to keep in touch. If the purpose of using online profiles is to spy on how successful and happy the lives of old acquaintances and complete strangers' lives are, then one should consider finding a new hobby.