SOMETIMES I find myself hating social networking sites.

After reading the fifth brainless status about how a friend is ‘off to make beans on toast’ and then writing one myself, I can’t help but despair at the hold that social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have on our lives.

However, while we moan about how it has consumed our lives we often forget about the good it can do.

I’m sure there have been many, many times a criminal has been caught after their photograph went viral, and Facebook is a great place to promote charity events and your own fund-raising page.

I was incredibly shocked to see the CCTV footage of a man sneaking up on a woman in London and punching her in the back of the head, leaving her lying unconscious on the floor.

But I saw that after it was posted on Facebook, as I’m sure thousands of others have, and hopefully that means someone was able to identify the man.

So while we could all do with not tweeting things like ‘OMG best sleep ever’ as much, we can’t deny the good these tools bring.

But what do you think? Do you agree they do more good than harm or do you believe the opposite?