MySpace or Facebook?

It's a question as old as time itself -- much like the chicken and the egg or the tree falling in the forest.

Which Web-based profile page should consume the hours you otherwise would spend working, studying or interacting with actual people?

While it is certainly growing in popularity to have a page on each social network, it remains difficult to devote an equal amount of time neglecting social obligations to keep them both properly updated.

And if there's one thing we can't have, it's your Facebook friends thinking that your favorite movie is "The Notebook" while your MySpace friends think it's "The Lake House."

Some people say that they need a page on both because they use the sites as "networking tools." Fair enough, but I'd like to counter that point by asking what kind of future employer or colleague needs to know that you are waiting for the man who will love you -- even in sweatpants and no makeup -- before deciding you're the right candidate for the job?

Either way, it's better to pick just one and stick with it. But this is a difficult task when the two sites are so similar. I mean, they both offer users a convenient way to accumulate vast amounts of meaningless, superficial friendships while providing a safe, non-threatening way for you to keep tabs on your ex-girlfriend or boyfriend from the comfort of your living room.

But let's focus a bit more on the differences, shall we?

First of all: music. While Facebook does allow users to include a variety of music features on their pages, it has yet to top MySpace's trademark "blast your friends with the same annoying song every time they visit your page" mainstay.

To add an element of surprise to this feature, MySpace also allows users to customize their pages with tacky wallpaper, animated graphics and slide shows -- which means that, by the time your Web browser has finished uploading all of that excess baggage, you have long since forgotten that your computer speakers are at full volume.

More importantly, you've forgotten that your friend's profile song is still "Rockstar" by Nickelback, which hasn't gotten a shade better than "suck" in the 58,000 times I've heard it since last year.

This is not to say Facebook is without its flaws as well.

At least, that's only if you count unadulterated invasions of privacy as "flaws," because, basically, it's impossible to sign into Facebook without stalking at least 30 individuals simultaneously.

It's called the "News Feed," and it's the feature that lets you know whose birthday it is, who is recently in or out of a relationship, and who has changed their picture from the one where you were trying on hats together by the fountain to a new one at a bar with that asshole she met in yoga class.

Which brings me to my final point concerning the differences between MySpace and Facebook (and one that, in my opinion, tips the scales irrevocably in favor of MySpace): constant solicitation from Internet prostitutes.

Sure, you think you've got seven or eight legitimate friend requests when you sign in, but then you find out that they're all named Anastasia or Candi, and they have special Web cams that run solely on your credit-card information.

Well guess what, ladies? You're too late.

I've maxed-out my last card, and I'm switching back to Facebook.