1. The Importance of Online Friendships By: Vincent Castronovo

2. The rapid advancement of social media has made it extremely easy to make new friends as well as maintain relationships with old ones. Cred: Creative Commons, katiebell2

3. It has become a rarity to find someone who does not have their very own online personal profile. Cred: Flickr, devaraji_arts

4. 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

5. The most famous online networking website is Cred: Creative Commons, pshab

6. “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 Cred: Creative Commons, rileyroxx

7. Started by University students for University students, Facebook has begun to revolutionize the online social friendship world. Cred: Creative Commons, a.powers-fudyma

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

9. 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 Cred: Myspace.com

10. 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. Cred: Creative Commons, xotoko

11. Being able to "tweet" messages and interact with celebrities on a personal level provides a service that many other social friendship websites cannot. Cred: Creative Commons, Romina Santos

12. These social websites allow you to maintain friendships with old friends no matter where you are. Cred: Creative Commons, NASA Goddard Photo

13. What about using the internet to meet new people, or even that special someone? Cred: Creative Commons, Segozyme

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

15. 1 out of 5 couples have met through an online dating site. Source: match.com Cred: Creative Commons, Leo Reynolds

16. We can now see the effects that online friendship is having on our society. Cred: Creative Commons, Fotogravirus

17. It is making it easier to maintain friendships through online social friendships sites. Cred: Creative Commons, L Lamos

18. And it has also become extremely easier to meet that special someone through these online services. Cred: Creative Commons, stager 57

19. There is no question that social media is changing our world. Cred: Creative Commons, h_svetia

20. Many people have mixed opinions on whether or not these changes are good or bad for society as a whole. Cred: Creative Commons, mcw026

21. Will the advancements of online friendships have an overall positive effect on our generation? Cred: Creative Commons, Lee Gonzalez Photography

22. Or will it result in detrimental effects within our society? Cred: Creative Commons, benwatts

23. Only time will tell, but for know keep tweeting and keep Facebooking. Cred: Creative Commoms, Rmss

24. 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. Cred: Creative Commons, ram