The Importance of Online Friendships

By: Vincent Castronovo

The rapid advancement of social media has made it extremely easy to make new friends as well as maintain relationships with old ones.

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It has become a rarity to find someone who does not have their very own online personal profile.

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There have been many social friendship pages that have been designed to cater to different people’s needs…

However, the question is which online friendship network will you choose?Cred: Creative Commons,

DoBeRaGi

The most famous online networking website is

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“As of July 21st 2010 there are over 500 million users who have active Facebook accounts.”A Collection of Social Network Stats for 2010, by Jeremiah Owyang

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Started by University students for University students, Facebook has begun to revolutionize the online social friendship world.

If you are more of a business type individual and looking for your dream job, LinkedIn with over 100 million users is for you.

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Cred: Myspace.com

For the more artistic/musician type of

individual, MySpace is still around.

With over 130 million users, MySpace music is second to none and is extremely unique. This may help bring back market share for the MySpace brand.Source: Can MySpace make a comeback, Ben Parr

One could also not forget about Twitter with close to 200 million users, it is becoming one of the most prominent and well known social

friendship website.  

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Being able to "tweet" messages and interact with celebrities on a personal level provides a service that many other social

friendship websites cannot.

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These social websites allow you to maintain friendships with old friends no

matter where you are.

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What about using the internet to meet new people, or even that special someone? 

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According to the eHarmony website an average of 542 singles marry a match they found online, on a daily basis.Source: eharmony.com

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1 out of 5 couples have met through an online dating site.Source: match.com

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We can now see the effects that online friendship is having on our society.

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It is making it easier to maintain friendships through online social

friendships sites.

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And it has also become extremely easier to meet that special someone through these online services.

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There is no question that social media is changing our

world.

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Many people have mixed opinions on whether or not these changes are good or

bad for society as a whole.

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Will the advancements of online friendships have an overall positive effect on our generation?

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Or will it result in detrimental effects within our society?

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Only time will tell, but for know keep tweeting and keep Facebooking.

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Because as time goes on,

technology will continue to

advance and there will be many more

changes within the social media world that will change society as we know it.

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