At school and at home, the 16-year-old rising junior at Monroe Area High School leads the normal life of an American teenager, going to school, hanging out with friends and spending time with her family.

But on the virtual playground of the Internet, Lipcsei goes by the nickname “Stinky,” socializing with other double agents on one of the largest online communities on the Web.

The Web site, still new enough that you can almost smell the virtual paint job, is one of many social networking sites on the Internet on which users can create profiles to be observed by others, send and receive messages from a list of approved friends and create a carefully constructed facade to present to the online world.

With the click of a mouse button, users can send friend requests to anyone on the Web site and, if approved by the other user, add that person to their own selection of MySpace friends. Many of those users are Americans. In the past week, the Los Angeles Times reported that ComScore Networks, a market research firm, submitted that over 52 million Web users in the U.S. visited MySpace in the month of June.

Robinson explained that MySpace gives people the ability to support far more relationships than would be actually possible in real life interactions.

Such lies among some users have contributed to some of the bad press MySpace occasionally receives. Some contend the site makes it easier for sexual predators to find young victims. To combat such problems, MySpace requires users to be over 14 and keeps users over 18 from viewing the online profiles of minors.

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