Social sites may hinder social skills

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) - If you are a millennial or older and Facebook and MySpace have become your primary way of communicating, a Purdue professor has a warning for you. By signing on excessively you may be hindering your ability to socialize.

The researchers say that communicating through cyberspace doesn't allow for close relationships that people need for a satisfying life.

"The time we are spending at the keyboards and screens is time that we are not using to engage the people in our immediate surroundings," said Purdue Communications Professor Glenn Sparks.

Sparks and former therapist Will Miller co-authored a book called, "Refrigerator Rights." The idea behind the book is for readers to figure out how many people are close enough to them that they would allow the person to walk into their house and share food out of their refrigerator.

"When you say that to people, they almost instantly know those people are in their life and what they'll realize is 'Whoa, I know a lot of people in my life but I don't have a lot of people that have refrigerator rights'," said Miller.

Nevertheless, Facebook and MySpace are great tools to stay in touch.

"I was actually abroad last semester and it's a good way to keep in touch when you're all the way overseas and you can't call them all the time. So it definitely is a good way to keep in touch with everyone," said Purdue student Jamie Freese.

But Professor Sparks stands by his concerns: people really do need the human touch for a good quality of life.

But it's tough to argue with the numbers. Facebook is the sixth-most trafficked site in the United States. It's also the largest photo-sharing site in the United States; users upload over 14 million new photos every day.