Thousands around the country are showing their support for Virginia Tech, by joining social networking sites on the internet.

Like many her age Niki Knobel helped to created a Facebook page to honor her friend Emily Hilscher.

She was one of the first that died on Monday.

"She's a great person, and she should be remembered for the person she is, not all the bad stuff that has happened to her," says Knobel.

James Madison University Student Lauren Peterson says a simple thing like changing her profile picture on Facebook, shows she cares.

"I feel close to it because I'm a Virginia student but you don't realize until you go onto Facebook how much of nationally and internationally its affected people, so many feel helpless cause they're so far away and they can't do anything," says Peterson.

Some groups on Facebook have grown to over 200 thousand people.

For Kristen Darby, Facebook was more than just a way to grieve. On the day of the shooting, she was able to find out her friends were ok when phone service went down.

"Something as little as my friends at tech updating their status at Facebook, like Rusty is ok, Daniel is ok, was really helpful because it gave you that reassurance really quickly," says Darby.

As of Wednesday the largest group has about 250 thousand people in it.