Your friends might be in Australia or maybe just down the road, but they are all just a few clicks away. Life has changed for millions of young people across the world who now make friends online. Whether you use chat-rooms, QQ, MSN or ICQ, you are a member of this group. "I don't often talk with my parents or grandparents, but I talk a lot with my old friends on QQ," said Fox's Shadow, the online name used by a girl student in China. "Most of my classmates use QQ after school." QQ is the biggest messaging service in China. A record from Tencent, the company which developed QQ, shows that 4 million people used it one Saturday night in October. And probably Fox's Shadow was one of them. "I  _ on Friday nights, and Saturdays or Sundays when I feel everything around me boring. I usually spend about ten hours chatting online every week," she said. "But I never talk with strangers, especially boys or men." Even though she likes chatting, she is careful about making friends with strangers online. "You don't know who you're talking to. You should always be careful about whom you believe in online." Many people would like to meet offline when they feel they have known someone very well. Fox's Shadow once met one of her online friends face to face. It was a girl who was a football fan like herself and they went to a football match together. A 16-year-old Beijing boy, named Bart Simon online, dislikes QQ users. "I used to chat on QQ, but I found that most people were talking about foolish things," he said. Now he chats online in English, using MSN. "I only chat online because I've got friends in Japan, the US and Singapore," he said. "I want to learn more about foreign cultures." But he spends little time chatting on QQ as he sees it as a waste of time and money.  "If you are really addicted to it, sometimes you can't give your mind to your lessons," he said. "And friends in your real life are always more important than those so-called friends you meet online." Fox's Shadow thinks QQ is  _  .
a good place to spend her time when bored the biggest messaging service in China a safe place to chat with strangers the best place to make friends