Can social networking sites give you more friends?

According to to a post by Anthony D. Williams, research indicates that the use of social networking sites will not increase you friendships but your lists of acquaintances.

I agree with that.

It also states that on average you will have about 150 acquaintances and 5 friends. I think the amount of acquaintances is a little low... depending on how you actually define 'an acquaintance'. On some sites like have seen people with thousands and thousands of people in their friends list - which is just crazy. I think that those are people suffering from a lack of self-esteem or just feeding their egos. I mean how could you possibly even keep the names of those thousand friends in your head?

The advantage in using social networking sites is that you can develop and maintain existing relationships with ease. It saves you time and allows you to keep in contact with people at all times.

The downside is that sites like Facebook help to promote laziness. People just need to post info once and everyone of their friends can see it. That way people are not making the effort to interact on an individual basis and therefore I think friendship can suffer.

Technology is only as good as the way you use it.