When 'Friend' Becomes a Verb

Facebook saves lives.

Well, maybe.

Last week, as the Red River rose to flood levels in Fargo, N.D., Facebook played a crucial role in rallying volunteers to build sandbag dikes.

As The Seattle Times reported, Kevin Tobosa was one of those residents sending Facebook updates as a way to put out calls for help: "Heading to 2825 Lilac Lane in North Fargo — needs to be raised another 2 feet."

What a relief to read that so many decent human beings were willing to drop everything to help strangers in need. Knowing that Facebook helped rally volunteers also fueled the ongoing debate in my head over the value of the social networking site.

A year ago, if anyone had told me I'd champion the wonders of Facebook, I would have yelped as if my hair was on fire and insisted I was just as likely to wake up 6 feet tall and blond.

I'd made fun of Facebook since its inception five years ago. To me, it was a sorry substitute for real relationships with a lot of people who couldn't sleep.

I was especially alarmed over how many of my middle-aged friends were converts. Maybe miffed is the better word. Every time more than two of us got together, I felt like the only one who didn't speak the native tongue.

They talked about status updates, used "friend" as if it were a verb , and howled over their silly grade-school photos posted by people they hadn't seen since kindergarten.

"Really?" I said once, trying to lean in to see the screen on my friend's laptop.

"Uh-uh," she said, turning the screen as the others nodded. "Not till you sign up."

Clearly, Facebook could make you mean, too.

Then, two years ago, a tragedy exploded on a college campus three states away. One of the quickest ways for reporters to find out whether any area students were there was to check Facebook. You have to be a member to search, so I joined.

For a year, my Facebook account sat dormant, with nary a vital statistic to separate me from every other Connie Schultz in the country.

And how humbling, by the way, to find out that other people not only have your name but also insist on using it.

Finally, my friend Jackie, who joined Facebook about 30 seconds after it was founded, called me. She had decided to do a Facebook intervention.

"Honey," she said, "let me at least put up a picture, OK?"

For the next six months, my profile photo was a pug.

Then, one weekend, I heard all of our grown kids laughing over one another's Facebook pages.

I was curious — OK, nosy. What was on their pages? I'll friend you, I said.

No way, they said.

"Mom, you don't friend your mother," my daughter said. When I pouted, she reminded me that I spent her entire adolescence yelling, "I'm not your friend; I'm your mother ."

She relented, but only recently, and only if I promised not to make a big deal about it. (I'm hoping this little mention doesn't count.)

Now I regularly check Facebook, which reportedly will register its 200 millionth user sometime this week, making me about as unique as a fruit fly.

As habits go, this is not all good. The home page feels like systems overload, with the steady stream of status updates pouring in like God knows what from a ruptured sewer line. And I'm not sure it's so great that all my "friends" now know I had a white girl's Afro in college, thanks to the photos posted by my old friend Murph.

But Tuesday, only hours before I filed this column, I posted a simple question on Facebook to ask 300 or so "friends" why they use it. Their answers reflected a community more diverse than any I could actually live in.

Donna uses Facebook to keep in touch with her son based in Iraq.

Ericka found her long-lost godfather, who used to send birthday cards filled with confetti when she was well into her 30s.

Bonnie and her daughter, Jill, both breast cancer survivors, run a support chat room for hundreds of other women fighting the disease.

The responses keep coming, and I keep reading, grateful that "friend" is now also a verb.

Connie Schultz is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland and the author of two books from Random House: "Life Happens" and "… and His Lovely Wife." To find out more about Connie Schultz (cschultz@plaind.com) and read her past columns, please visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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