Teenagers and young adults love sharing stories, showing off pictures, making comments and gossiping, making friends, listening to each other’s play lists, watching funny video clips made by their mates, and so on. They can create their own universe and view other personal universes. The site belongs to them, not to some unfriendly webmaster.

With so many young people using social networking sites, it is no wonder that sometimes things go wrong, awfully wrong. We have all read headlines like: "NZ teen sells drugs through Bebo", "13-year-old Californian girl victim of intense abuse through MySpace", "Belfast authorities dismayed at sectarian violence found in some Bebo sites", "Dublin rapists lure girls to party with Bebo", "Misuse of Facebook forces college in New Jersey to expel student", "Government department in Brazil accuses Google of facilitating criminal activity through its social website Orkut".

But even if it were possible to shelter young people from the bullies and criminals, there is a more insidious problem inherent in the medium. Living on social networking sites impairs the formation of young people’s character:

• They foster curiosity, vanity and jealousy. The sites basically constitute a gigantic popularity contest.
• They encourage dishonesty: you can provide any age that suits your purpose, and you can fantasise about your weekend – who is to know what really happened?
• Users tend to live in their own little world, and excessive use can make them forget how to behave properly in the company of others.
• They discourage deep and reflective thinking – not to mention proper spelling!
• Most importantly, they become a real obstacle for genuine empathic communication.

Although many teenagers now use social networking websites to make friends, they miss out on a key aspect of genuine friendship, empathic communication. At a computer screen, using broken and coded language, you cannot see, hear or touch or experience the feelings of another person.

Even webcams are hardly a substitute for a face-to-face relationship. This feature could ultimately have serious implications for the future of society. It is important nowadays to foster face-to-face relationships in the home and elsewhere: having meals together or going on outings with family and friends, playing team sport or even just watching TV together and discussing it afterwards.

Luisón Lassala, Director of Anchor Youth Centre in Dublin and a freelance IT consultant