Are Facebook friends really friends?

On Sunday, I attended "Are Friends Electric", an event at the Edinburgh Book Festival which looked at the rise of social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter etc. The speakers were Jason Bradbury from Channel 5's "The Gadget Show" and Dr Mariann Hardey, a social media researcher who writes a blog on social networking etiquette.

The event raised some really interesting questions about the rise of social networking sites in general and I was very interested in the impact they have on young people. Both speakers were understandably enthusiastic about the potential of a much more connected world but what is the greater impact? Eric Schmidt, the boss of Google, today warned that young people lack an understanding of the consequences of posting so much personal information online and may have to change their names to escape their online history in the future.

Scaremongering? Possibly. Cynical? Maybe.

But real issues remain.....

• Stories already exist of employees being caught for insulting employees, benefit cheats defrauding the system, people being sacked for using social networking sites while off sick and even one girl who was sacked for branding work "boring" on her first day at work - forgetting that she had added her new boss as a friend!


• Rumours abound of employers using social networking sites as part of their recruitment process - could an inappropriate picture of you posted on a site affect your employment opportunities in the years to come?


• You may be careful about what you publish - but what about what others put on about you?


• What about the concerns regarding cyber bullying?


• If the information is in the public domain, is it fair game for large businesses to use it to market products and services to you?

As a Business Studies teacher, I need to look at the rise of social networking sites from two sides - the costs and benefits from a business perspective as it changes the way businesses operate, and the impact it has on the young people I teach. With no sign of a downturn in their popularity, their impact on both in the future will be very interesting to monitor.

And for me, one of the main questions is: is an electric friend truly a real friend? If I have 500 friends on Facebook, do I truly have 500 friends?

I would be interested to hear any views from my readers.