why do people keep friends on social networking sites if they cannot meet them in real life?

[Dammy]

Statistics say 90 percent of the people on social networking sites have not met most of their online friends in real life. why is that?

[Ms. Opinionative]

I highly doubt those statistics are accurate. On MySpace and Facebook, most connections are not only close relatives and friends, but rather friends they hang around on a daily basis, as in, in the neighborhood, college, high school etc. Other than that, most people add friends to increase their friend number. When I used MySpace as a teenager a few years ago, I got addicted so badly, I added over 100,000 people randomly. However, thanks to my large number of "friends," chaos ensued, which influenced me to delete my account. Albeit many people use social networking sites to add their close friends and family, or strangers to increase their friend count, social networking sites are also great for keeping in touch with old, or distant friends, and can be considered more fun than generic emailing.

[Fran W]

Some people just like to chat with others with the same interests. They may not have any other interest in each other, but to play games or talk about current events.

[lolitagirl]

They tried, but it didn't work out. Please answer my question below.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...222AAjspW1

[Material Girl$]

they don't care they just want alot of friends. it is contest to have lots of friends like 2000 friends.

[zasek]

you could say the same about having a pen-pal before the internet was so prevalent.

The pure physical distance makes a friendship with someone from a totally different culture almost impossible for many people.

lol at friendlist contest, thats so shallow I'm sad for you