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With Facebook officially turning five years old recently, combined with the site surging past MySpace in Monthly Unique Visitors, it seems like a good time to take a little deeper look at the social networking giants.

But just as Moore's Law hits physical constraints, network effects have a limit in many types of online communities. Indeed, in some cases, a reverse network effect may exist: as new people join, others are motivated to leave.

Most people dabble in many social networks but eventually settle into only one or two that they keep up with on anything resembling a long-term basis. To narrow it down, though, I'd find out which social networks your friends frequent and sign up for them.

You may think that many adults have joined the online trend mainly to network professionally with others in their field. However, that turns out not to be true. Instead adults, like teens, are there to socialize with their friends and people they already know. Nearly nine in ten social network users (89%) say they use the networks to stay in touch with friends, and 57% say they use it to make plans with friends. Under half (49%) use the sites to make new friends.

Facebook remains the number one Web site this year among college students, according to a survey by Anderson Analytics, which has tracked US college students' attitudes and behaviors since 2005.