The Book Corner: "Facebook Fairytales"

Obviously, everyone reading this knows about Facebook. There are seemingly more users than there are people on Earth, and even someone as old and out-of-touch as I am (with a near total degree of computer/tech ignorance) can navigate and use it easily (and can even use it to boost page views of my hubs by posting links to each one on my Facebook wall). But pretty much all of us on the site know it and think of it as a place to basically let our friends know about that amazing muffin we just had or some TV episode to watch out for... essentially, the online version of small talk (I know more than a few people who don't use it because that's the only way they can see it). I've always had a little bit more respect for the site than that, but I was still surprised by many of the stories in Emily Liebert's book "Facebook Fairytales" (Skyhorse Publishing).

This is a collection of true stories about people who have done QUITE a bit more with the site than just update their friends about what they did today. Sisters who lost track of each other and didn't even know if the other was still alive re-unite after 40 years because of Facebook. A couple unable to have children and unable to get past the stumbling blocks of the local adoption agencies finally find the child they've been waiting for through Facebook. A mother waiting for an organ donation but with little hope of finding a match has a friend set up a Facebook page for that purpose... and succeeds in getting one from a total stranger!

I have to admit that when I first ran across this book on the library shelf and looked at its premise, my first thought was that it had been sponsored by the founders of Facebook in order to boost their public image and get people to think of it as something more than a site for social trivia (not that there's anything wrong with that). And there definitely is a certain degree of that here, what with an introductory interview with Mark Zuckerberg  and a chapter dedicated to another Facebook co-founder, Chris Hughes, and his use of Facebook to help Barack Obama win the presidency in 2008 (though, really, how can you be doing a book on this subject and NOT use that story?). But my initial cynicism was, if not completely eliminated, at least brushed to the side in very short order.

The book is subtitled "Modern-day miracles to inspire the human spirit", and that may be going just a bit overboard. But most of the stories are pretty amazing and eye opening, especially to those who imagine that nobody would ever reach out to help a total stranger they've only heard about on a social networking site. Time and again, people have been moved by the plight of someone they've heard about on a dedicated Facebook page and reached out to do what they can. Parents who suffered the loss of a child because they never thought to vacinate her for Meningitis start a Facebook page in her honor and saved the lives of thousands of other children as a result. I*n one of the most fascinating stories, the mother of an autistic son finds a Facebook page for autistics and manages to get her son to a remarkably high degree of high-functioning life through its use. Now that I think of it, I might want to re-think that remark about miracles in at least a few of the cases.

There are, of course, the practical uses of the site as well. People who use Facebook pages to find the job of their dreams or some other purely personal use. (Of course, these make for interesting reading, too, especially for those of us who have out of work for longer than we'd care to think about.) And it certainly amused me more than a little bit to read all of the various reasons that many user give for not having started getting into Facebook earlier, including a "mature" couple who always thought it was mostly a site for younger people looking for love (speaking as someone who fits neither of those categories, I say... HA HA HA HA!). Liebert rarely intrudes into the individual stories and has the good sense to let the subjects tell their own stories in their own words. Smart decision: for the most part, they're interesting enough to not need an author's embellishments. (I mean, when you have a story about someone trapped in the middle of a terrorist uprising where all other means of communication but Facebook are useless, how could you amp up the drama on that?)

Of course, Facebook will probably never become known first and foremost as a means for people to accomplish all the amazing things we read about in this book. And there's no reason we SHOULD forget about the silly stuff, either... after having written about all these inspirational stories, I'm sure I'll be posting something something completely meaningless and trivial on there later today (after al,, it's fun). But I do think that many of us do have a limited view of Facebook's potential and what ELSE the site could be about. After reading "Facebook Fairytales" (just one quibble: since the stories are all true, why does the title call them "Fairytales"? Just wondering...), you should at least a better idea of what you COULD be doing with it. And who knows?... it might even give you some ideas!