Facebook: the crack cocaine of networking

As we tot up our Facebook pals, what happens to real friendship, asks lucy beresford

Is Facebook a harmless online global cocktail party - or is it promoting emotional prostitution?

The social networking site, which is growing so fast it now has 3.2m users in Britain alone, taps into our craving for positive affirmation. But after the first adrenalin rush when people accept our requests to be a friend, the high evaporates, and we feel compelled to contact ever more remote individuals to up our visible tally of friends. This is the crack cocaine of networking.

We don't even have to speak to these 'friends', let alone meet up; the emotional intimacy one might expect to enjoy with good mates is denied, and even subverted.

In the past, we made friends at school; we shared flats, or ante-natal classes; we worked together. Today, we class someone as a friend because we listen to their radio show. We feel we must prove to others,

if not to ourselves, that we have many friends. We are afraid of being lonely, or thought lonely.

Facebook-ers aged 15-25 have on average 350 friends; some top over 1,000. It's an addiction that compensates for our inner emptiness. We feel validated. "I have this many friends," we say to ourselves, "which means I am worth this much."

The trouble is, this validation comes from an external source, not a secure internal one, and as a result is ephemeral and unhealthy. For people with fragile egos, such competitiveness is disastrous. A deep personal dissatisfaction can ensue.

Yet we know that true friends are vital to our mental well-being. They keep us grounded, and provide mental succour and healthy emotional support. They love us for all our faults.

Facebook tempts us to invest too much time in 'virtual' friends at the expense of the unique and precious wonderfulness of our real ones.