There is a competition afoot of which I want no part. It is based around the internet and involves perceived friendships. Pick a social networking page - any one - and take a look at the number of people listed as friends. There will invariably be a few dozen, maybe scores; in extreme cases, hundreds, perhaps thousands.
My elder son's Facebook page has 835 names listed. A former work colleague's has 668. I checked my younger son's page and he has 466. I don't even have a Facebook, Friendster, MySpace or any of the other lesser-known socialising pages out there - I learned long ago that there are too many online freaks in the world.
Friendster's Asia chief, Ian Stewart, gave a presentation recently in which he detailed the results of an MTV and TNS survey of the region's youth. His most intriguing statistic was that mainland China's young people had more online than offline friends. This was not the case in other Asian countries.
A Chinese youth had, on average, 139 friends, of whom 13 were considered BFFs - best friends forever. Sixty were offline, probably friends from school or the neighbourhood, and the rest were met on the internet. Young people from Thailand were determined to be the friendliest, with 170 close, online and offline friends. Vietnamese were at the opposite end of the spectrum, with 80 friends.
In terms of online friends, Australians, Filipinos, Indians, Indonesians, Koreans and Vietnamese tended to have 30 or less. Thais and Malaysians joined Chinese with 50 or more.
The research raises the question of what constitutes a friend. In my younger son's case, it would seem to have little to do with the internet. Of those 'friends' on his Facebook page, only a handful to him are BFFs. The rest are there to keep up with the rest of the online pack. Or, to put Facebook in perspective, to maintain face.
Social networking specialists like Stewart are eager to read meaning into the figures. There is no doubt that China has embraced the internet . Online dating has taken off there in a big way. But it has everywhere else in the world, too. It would be wrong to contend that the one-child policy or a communist government sends young people to computer screens in search of companionship or a reality check.