In the old days, making new friends required engaging in some kind of social activity, but with Internet social networking sites such as MySpace, "friends" can be made without even leaving the house.
MySpace not only makes it easy to meet people, it has changed how people decide to be friends. That first "getting to know the basics" conversation is no longer needed. A person's profile provides their interests, sign, age, education, romantic status and even whether they smoke or drink.
For sophomores Kennedy Coker, 20, and Linda Villanueva, 20, a common music interest and the fact they were both going to be Chico State freshmen sparked their first MySpace conversation.
Coker was excited about going to college but nervous she wouldn't know anybody in the area, she said. Though she had never made friends through MySpace, she decided to do a search for people in her area who were also going to be Chico State freshmen.
"The situation was different because I was going to a new area and felt like everyone was going to have friends," she said. "So I took the initiative to make my own."
While browsing profiles, Coker noticed future freshman Villanueva liked the same local band as her, she said.
"I sent her message saying things like I was going to Chico State, too, and I loved the band This Holiday Life, and 'Are you excited, too?'" Coker said. "She responded, and we talked for a while and talked about meeting up when we got to Chico."
Villanueva thought the message from Coker was legit, and while she doesn't normally respond to random messages, the band they had in common wasn't well known, she said.
Coker and Villanueva met the first week of school at a freshmen event, Villanueva said. They had a lot of the same interests and hung out together most of freshman year.
Villanueva hasn't met any other friends on MySpace, she said. It can be kind of scary accepting random people as friends because profiles provide a lot of information.
"One time a person I met online and was chatting with visited me at work," Villanueva said. "It was kind of awkward and scary. People know a lot more than you think."
The amount of information a person can get from MySpace is scary, but what can be even scarier is the information a person can't get.
A lot of people are not who they appear to be and the information on MySpace isn't who they really are, said Sgt. Dave Barrow of the Chico Police Department. The Internet is not secure so people need to use caution.
Many people who use the sites are good people, Barrow said. But a lot of predators also use them.
"[Physically] meeting someone on MySpace I would equate to meeting someone at a bar sitting down, having a conversation with them and then going home with them," Barrow said.
But if a person is going to actually meet someone from MySpace, they should find out as much as possible about the person first and keep meeting them in public places until it is comfortable, Barrow said.
Coker and Villanueva were both freshmen so meeting was easy, but that's not always the case.
Dillon Elliott, 27, has met many friends and girlfriends through MySpace, he said. If he likes the way their profiles look and if they have common interests, he sends them a message. He gets responses back about half the time.
"I see a lot of people, mostly guys, send sleazy messages," the junior said. "I don't recommend that, you have to be courteous."
Of course not everyone is using MySpace to meet people, some still do it the old fashion way.
Sophomore Kori Mierly, 19, has never made a friend through MySpace, she said
"In general, it's better to go out and meet people because you never know who they might be," Mierly said. "Like that show 'How to Catch a Predator.'"
Receiving messages from random people can be creepy, she said. But she isn't totally opposed to the idea.
"If I found someone interesting I would," Mierly said. "If I was digging what they were laying down."
Being open to meeting people on MySpace, despite it being a little creepy, is not unusual for the cyber generation.
"It's become part of our culture, it's part of our everyday life," Coker said. "People like to pretend it's creepy, but they should just embrace it because we all do it."
Ashley Latoof can be reached at alatoof@theorion.com
Related articles and links: MySpace safety tips Group calls for teen privacy protections on Facebook, MySpace
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