Social Networking

Social networking is a phenomenon that has grown up in the past few years and it has attracted a lot of publicity, both good and bad. We usually hear about it in the context of young people who use the social networking sites on the internet to keep in touch with their friends and so on. However, older people can also use these sites to help meet new people and form friendships.

There are, literally, hundreds of these sites and the largest ones have millions of members. The three biggest, MySpace, Habbo and Facebook, have approximately 110,000,000, 82,000,000 and 70,000,000 respectively. These are quite astonishing numbers even if they are for people world-wide. The most popular one in the UK is MySpace; Bebo (with a world-wide membership of a mere 40,000,000!) is second and Facebook third.

How do these websites work? With MySpace , you can go into the Search page and then build your own network of friends and you can search for friends, schools, and people with common interests, both personal and career, to you. You can then take it as far as you wish; you can just talk to people online and share things of interest with them or you can meet them face-to-face.

When you look at Facebook, you'll see that you're invited to join and you can then link to your friends. Because it's a Network, your group will rapidly expand and you can meet new people. The chances are that, because people know people that you know, you'll have things in common with them which gives you a good start in forming friendships. It also means that if you want to meet them face-to-face, you can do it through the mutual friend.

When you go into Bebo you enter your details (you can hide your age and your address is available only to selected friends) and your profile - likes and dislikes and so on - and then you can start building a network of existing friends and new people who have similar likes and dislikes to you. So, again, it's about building a network and then interacting, in whichever way you choose to, with that network.

Then, of course there's Friends Reunited, which is an excellent way of meeting people because you already know them! Meeting up with people you knew previously and with whom you therefore have a common interest can be easier than meeting brand new people. Friends Reunited has about 19,000,000 members worldwide and if you're prepared to do some detective work if necessary, it's possible to find just about anybody through the website. Then you can meet up and form friendships all over again.

Many people like to build networks on-line and never actually meet anyone - they're happy with the friendships they form by writing on the website. Indeed, because these things can be world-wide, it's the only practical way with some of the people you will meet. However, if that's all you intend to do with everyone you meet online, then make sure that you do some of the other things in the Guide, too, so that you actually get out and meet people in the real world as well as the virtual world.

Social networking is a modern phenomenon and one that shows no sign of abating at the moment. It's a very good way of communicating with existing friends and meeting new ones. However, meeting people online is not enough - we need to have face-to-face contact with people, too. So by all means use these sites because they are useful and they are fun but do more, too.

So read the rest of the Guide by clicking on the links in the boxes to get some ideas for other ways of forming friendships.

If you have any good ideas and tips to help people in this important area of later life, please let us know at feedback@laterlife.com and we'll include it in the Guide.