Mike Davies looks at why we need them

There are hundreds if not thousands of social networking sites on the internet. Bringing people together for a variety of reasons: book clubs, cookery, living overseas, movies, music, online gaming, schools, sport and so on. Some social networking sites are totally unfamiliar to us but others such as Facebook and MySpace well known. They can of course take up a lot of time but are they a time waster or are they a useful tool? For me, I would say a bit of both. They can be a distraction when there is something more important to be done but they can also keep you in contact with a great number of friends and family.

Everyone loves having friends as they make life enjoyable (most of the time). I recently heard a talk about how many really close lifetime friends you can have. The answer was given at an average of 10 to 12 in a lifetime. Interesting as 12 is the number of men that Jesus chose to walk with him.

I have since spent a lot of time trying to find out how many true once in a lifetime type friends you can have and most research reports I have read come out stating something between 6 to 12 friends.

So, looking at the amount of birthday cards and Christmas card we send out from our house it would seem we well exceed the limit so are these other people really friends who I am prepared to expose the inner feelings or my heart or just people I know? For instance, would any of them really miss me if I was gone? Likewise how well do I know these people I annually send Christmas greetings? Who are all the people on my Facebook friends list? At least I do know them and have met most of them.

I think some of the large social networking sites are great at keeping you in touch, or finding old friends, without having to give them a total briefing of the 10 years in your life since you last met. A single sentence can be sent to keep in touch with those who you could have grown in friendship with if only circumstances were different.

For me I can see what members of my family are doing, see recent photos, and actually learn things about friends and family that I may never have known if it were not for the networking site.

Our individual human life can be so complicated at times that it is wonderful to know that through friendship we can have a huge support system in place around us. It is great to turn on the computer and see words of thanks, or encouragement, or a birthday wish.

On the contrary to how many real close lifetime friends you can have I found a report published recently following a study of 10,000 students living in the US. The report found that the more friends you had at school the more financially prosperous you were likely to be. This is based on the concept that the workplace is a social setting and having mastered social skills and gathered friends at school you were more likely to prosper in management and teamwork. The survey was carried out over 35 years and was actually well reported in a lot of press around the world.

Of course, this probably does not relate to building up a great bank of friends on FaceBook, or the likes, as so many people just contact you who you don't know, but I wonder why is it we need friends? Well, we were made in the image of God and we were designed to have a relationship with Him and that is inherent within every human being - the basic need of relationship. Without friendship and relationship we can become self-focused rather than looking outward.

I often get contacted on one of our networking sites from someone I don't know asking for prayer for healing, a miracle and saying they need to be closer to God but don't know how to go about it, or just wanting to share about a relationship issue - to me this is a great benefit of social networking - be able to share a concern.

Imagine if God were to set up his own personal site on Facebook. How many friends would he have listed and how many of those would be real lifetime friendships where his friends were open to express the concerns of their inner heart to him?

Well, we know God doesn't need a Facebook site as he already knows everything about us; but he is looking for a life long relationship and unlike Facebook where your request to be a friend can be rejected he will never say no to a life long relationship.