(DISCLAIMER: I have both a MySpace and Facebook account. I'm a hypocrite, I know.)

If you find yourself struggling between creating a profile and are considering both, stop and think: MySpace and Facebook and other social networking sites have taken over the world. These days, who doesn't have an online profile through one, two or even more sites? Even parents and grandparents, teachers and vampires and lonely old men are crowding into the millions of users, thus creating issues concerning privacy, online predators, and slander, among other things.

The main dilemna here is the sites' totalitarian control over our individual lives, not the negativity that is associated with them. If you find yourself bored during the day in the middle of the week, MySpace and Facebook provide you the oppurtunity to waste time. Time will fly by as you "MySpace hop," (a term I just made up when you look at anyone's profile that catches your interest) or attempt the dire task of friend-requesting everyone in your entire school or work place (prepare to stalk your friend's friend's friends for hours on end, and possibly be labeled a "creeper"). On Facebook, which is (in my opinion) a significantly less popular college-age equivalent to MySpace, time can be thrown away by checking out each of your friend's news feeds and tagging every single person in each picture. For the procrastinator dwelling inside all of us, these sites are the best (or possibly worst) invention ever.

So why is it that people are drawn to these sites like bugs drawn to those blue...bug zapper things? It is doubtful that the sites can be fun; what could be fun about looking at pictures of people you know and, most of the time, of people you don't know? Where is the entertainment value in commenting someone back and forth? That's what email and instant messengers and telephones were invented for. MySpace is not a place for friends but rather a place for ad revenue, simply disguised as a prettied-up email account. And the millions of users drive up the costs to post advertisements on the site, thus making millionaires of its owners. Sound like a smart plan?

Along with this example of genius, another problem comes in the form of our addiction to modern technology. You've probably all heard it before. Stories from your parents (or perhaps you telling these stories to your children) about playing outside until dinner when you and your friends got called to your respective houses, etc. This doesn't really happen anymore. Instead, for those people still living with parents, you chat with friends online until forced out of the chair; if you live alone, you become so absorbed you overlook other errands that need tended to. Too often we forget that our friends are doing the same thing as we comment them: sitting in front of a computer screen, bored. MySpace and Facebook have the ability to make us forget that the world exists beyond our computer.

It doesn't matter whether you belong to these sites or not. What does matter is by spending all your time in one place, you're missing out on real life. It's not on your computer screen. It's moving around you while you sit still. So take the time to log off and get into life.