Facebook, MySpace and Bebo, an amazing new way of keeping in touch with people or a worrying new way of keeping tabs on them? Robyn Walker finds out if social networking sites are turning us into a nation of stalkers

Finding out information on an ex use to mean grilling friends for tit-bits of gossip, or seeing them with somebody else. Now all you have to do is type their name into a search engine and you can find out if they’re going out with somebody and even look at their photographs to see if their new partner looks like.

The amount of personal information on Facebook and MySpace pages, and the fact anybody with access to your profile can read your messages could encourage a stalker mentality in people according to The Director of the Centre for Internet Addiction Recovery, Dr Kimberly Young:

"We see this all the time with internet predators. They use this information to gain knowledge of potential prey and certainly can be used in the same way with ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends to keep tabs on someone."

Charlette Purgh, 21, Blackburn thinks that: "everybody checks on their ex’s on Facebook to see what they’ve been up to, it’s normal it’s nothing like being a stalker."

Dr Young however says that if you keep checking on your ex it’s obsessive: "Anyone checking on an ex – what he or she is doing, is certainly not over the person. The need know itself keeps them coming back and doesn’t let the person move on."

Although Dr Young admits the growth of social networking sites has led to an increase to the number of people who are addicted to the internet, although they "don’t typically see cases of just MySpace or Facebook addiction but the internet in general".

Warning bells should be ringing if you feel preoccupied with the internet, can’t control how much you use it and it’s interfering with your daily functioning.

What should you do if you think you might have crossed the line and are cyber stalking an ex? The best way of checking is to see if you can go a week without logging on to any of your social networking sites.

If you think you really have a problem and the internet is effecting your daily functioning such as washing or eating, Dr Young says you should find a therapist or psychologist who has experience with internet addiction.

"Addiction recovery is often hard, especially in such a technology drive culture, so treating it becomes a very specialized field."