myspace, facebook, bebo... where will it all end?!?

these sites are killing me and yet i somehow can't stay away from them. i have accounts on all three of them. for those of you who don't know, bebo is the myspace of the uk. some of them aren't that bad. on myspace and facebook i get to be connected with people that i know (or knew) and haven't spoken with in ages. of course, there's the odd person (meeg, i'm looking at you here) who i talk to all of the time and still have on facebook (and myspace and bebo). it's ultimately a good thing to be able to reconnect with these people and i'm all for it.
bebo's the weird one, though. other than the few people that i strong-armed into opening bebo pages, i don't know a single one of my "bebo friends" in real life. it sometimes feels like i do, as i've been talking to them on bebo for over a year now, but ultimately i don't actually know them.
why is it that we (cus it's not just me- they all do it, too) feel the need to make friends with people who live half-way around the world and who we will most likely never meet? don't get me wrong, they're nice people, it's all very diverting, etc., but it just seems a little insane.

does anyone else feel like the proliferation of these sites is just a little ridiculous? i have 80+ friends on myspace and even more than that on facebook. how the hell am i meant to keep up with all of them? (oh, and don't get me started on those applications that tell me what my grade in bed is or ask me to take 10 question iq tests online!!). i'm glad to be able to connect with these old friends, i like being able to comment them when i miss them or have something to say, but what ever happened to emails and phone calls? am i a neo-luddite? part of me thinks that it's gone too far and yet as we speak i have all three (myspace, bebo and facebook open on my computer). am i a hypocrite or an addict?

so, what do you think? are these sites good things or bad things? discuss amongst yourselves (and then leave comments to let me know how you feel about it).

much love,
nic