Teen Times Sam MealyAs a self-confessed Bebo junkie, it's difficult for me to be impartial when viewing the internet addiction that afflicts most people of my age. However, despite this bias, it puts me in a good position to comment on what I perceive to be the problems of the system.

My main problem with networking sites such as Bebo and MySpace is not that they are the perennial time-wasters of my average day, but that they have morphed into one monstrous popularity contest between their various users.

This is why these sites are so effective and popular. They have been designed for the unwitting user to create a cool, intelligent and most importantly airbrushed picture of themselves that will appeal to the outside (or should that be inside) world in an effort to garner more "profile views" and gather more "friends", which encourages competition between users and thus compels them to spend more of their time using these sites. Your popularity is judged by the number of "hits" your page has received, thus sending the majority of teenagers into near-delirium as they attempt to enlarge this magic figure.

There is only one way to achieve this goal: comment on other users' profiles in the hope that they will reply to your mostly unsolicited conversational gambits. Complete strangers therefore arrive on your webpage seeking both social acceptance and, more importantly, social elevation in the eyes of their peers. These "randomers" might have nothing to do with you or your life but what the hell, they just want more hits, so you oblige willingly, hoping it will also work in your favour.

This is the element of networking sites, and especially Bebo, that I loathe. In theory, such sites are a great idea - you get to keep in contact with faraway friends and stay in the loop when you're on holiday - but the situation has expanded rapidly from such inauspicious ideals. Nowadays, to be a successful/popular (delete according to taste) Beboer you must follow certain conventions. These include posting photos of you (looking fabulous obviously) all over your page, surrounded by similarly beautiful friends at some wild and wonderful party that everyone wants to be at.

You must also have a satisfactorily bland taste in music, ranging from stadium rock, ie Snow Patrol and U2 (nothing personal), to acceptably cool hip-hop/R&B acts. Also, you must be available online at least twice a day to maintain your glossy production of self-promotion.

This sometimes pathetic, preening excuse for social interaction has encouraged me to use networking sites less, but the fact that I cannot entirely retire from cyberspace life highlights the power these sites have in modern teenagers' life. This apparent addiction to popularity is a rather sorrowful indictment of the present generation. Why do we feel such a powerful urge to pretend to others? In our modern world of constant consumption, perhaps we find it too difficult to give even a small piece of our real selves.

Sam Mealy (15) is a fifth-year student at St Peter's College, Wexford