Go on any social networking site these days and you'll discover that it's not hard to find out just how popular you are using one of the new "Top Friends" applications. These allow you to list about 10 of your favorite friends, and the rest of the world gets to see whom you like the most.

Such applications create interesting social drama. If you're ranked No. 4 on a friend's site, and if you actually do consider them as a friend, then you have to rank them somewhere around the No. 4 spot on your top friends. If you don't actually like them, you can make them look like a fool by putting them in one of the lower spots on your top friends section, or just not put them in at all.

Many things can also be easily expressed in one's top friends section. Say you're in a fight with a friend, their No. 2 spot can easily be changed to a No. 10 spot, which clearly tells your friend that they have done something wrong in your opinion.

Facebook, which just recently added the application, can actually calculate how "popular" you are based on your rankings in your friend's profile. However, unlike the MySpace Top Eight, which is automatically a feature of your profile, Facebook users can choose to add this program.

In my early days of MySpacing, I spent way too much time making and rearranging my Top Eight. It took me awhile to just stop caring. It took me even longer to realize that I couldn't accurately rank my friends.

Once I thought about it, it just seemed really ridiculous to rank friends like you would rank sports teams. It made me wonder what kind of society we have made in which friendship is so trivialized that it's easy for us to make a numbered list of our different friendships.

I don't know about you, but in my group of friends, it's hard for me to distinctly place one above another. Many are all just about on the same level, while on other days that might change. I have different types of friends, but all are equally important.

Even though it is nice to see yourself high in a top friends section, it's also a little saddening when you take a glance at one of your friend's profile and realize that you're obviously not as a good a friend with them as you thought.

It's arguable that these applications are dumb popularity contests, merely a way for high school kids to be mean to each other and prove they are "cool."

Either way, though, looking at different people's top friends is a good way to pass the time when you're bored, and I won't hate you if I get knocked off your Top Eight.