UA students use Facebook to show how much they

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UA students use Facebook to show how much they "like" peers

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Posted 6:04 AM 1/24/2013 : UA students use Facebook to show how much they "like" their peers

TUCSON- At most colleges, students use Facebook to share their photos and catch up with friends.

But at The University of Arizona, students are using the social media site to spread positivity across campus.

In November, Sophomore Vinson Liu created a Facebook page called "UA Compliments". Facebook users can send in a kind message about a UA student and then an anonymous Facebook user posts it to the page for all to see. "I just invited maybe 20 friends to it and then from there it just exploded," Liu says.

Within the first week the page had 1,700 "likes". Today it has more than 3,000 and the number keeps growing. "It has been so incredible to watch the numbers grow," Liu says.

Freshman Mike Botelho has received two compliments on the page.

One reads: "To Mike Botelho: At first you may come off as a tough guy, but you have a big heart and you always seem to put others before yourself. I admire that you have strong values and that you stick with them."

"It pretty much made my day a hundred times better," Botelho says.

He has also sent in a compliment and plans on sending more. "Seeing how happy it makes me feel I would love to make someone else feel that," Botelho says.

"When you know it's genuine I think it can go pretty far, it can make your day or week," says Senior Christina Manuele. She has never used the page, but is thinking about posting to it in the future.

Liu says right now the page is receiving about 30 messages a day. They are usually posted at 10am and 10pm.

In a society where cyberbullying often ends in tragedy, the page provides a means to attack it.

Liu says he hopes to get as many students involved as possible. "And if one day we get all 40,000, that would be incredible," Liu says.

Liu says since he created the "UA Compliments" page he has seen similar pages pop up at other universities, including NAU and ASU.

To check out the page head to : www.facebook.com/UaCompliments?ref=ts&fref=ts