# 13 MySpace and # 14 Facebook

Well after much deliberation and psyching up I finally joined MySpace and Facebook, checked out what each of them offered. Checked out what other people had on their sites, then promptly deleted my accounts. I know that was wimpy of me but there is a reason I have avoided joining the ever growing numbers of people on social networking sites. Over the past few years I have been amazed by the number (and frankly the type of people who have wanted to 'friend' me). Surprise! Surprise! my friends have remained my friends even though I have not friended them on Facebook or MySpace

I have to say that I printed out the 5 easy steps to stay safe on Facebook, and followed them to the letter. I can see how people would get frustrated with this task and not bother, though when I looked at the default settings it certainly allows people to access just about anything. For this reason, I would prefer facebook over MySpace as it seemed to offer better privacy settings for the user. MySpace had a more appealing  homepage and I can certainly see it appealing more to the younger user with it's easy access to music downloads. Thanks for the articles about protecting yourself, they were very valuable.

Lots of my friends are on Facebook and find it very useful for sharing photos, especially when living/travelling overseas or organising group catch-ups. I don't feel the need at the moment to spend an inordinate amount of time seeing what others are doing. Maybe that need will present itself as my kids get older.

I checked out Ning but couldn't access it and had a look at Linked-in which looked good for those in professions such as teaching or education. Haven't had much time to investigate Twitter. What I saw didn't impress me much. However, I have enjoyed reading many people's "Twittered" comments whilst watching Q and A.