Eyal Hanfling was browsing Facebook one recent evening when he noticed that a friend, a student at Columbia University in New York, had received a glowing comment from an account called “Columbia Compliments.”

Further down his newsfeed was a compliment for another friend from an account called “TJ Compliments,” for Thomas Jefferson High School.

By midnight, Hanfling established an account for his school, Walt Whitman High in Bethesda, Md., a public high school of about 2,000 students. By the next evening, about 300 compliments had been submitted to Hanfling – at that point still an anonymous administrator – who in turn posted them. Those receiving the compliments were tagged in the post, but they didn’t know their flatterer.   

Courtesy of Eyal Hanfling

The Facebook page "Whitman Compliments" was inspired by Queens University Compliments in Canada, created in September. Students submit compliments, which are then posted online anonymously. There are now at least 98 similar sites at universities and high schools, most of them in Canada and the U.S.

The Facebook compliments craze was started in September by four students at Queens University in Ontario, Canada as an antidote to cyber-bullying and a way to spread joy across campus. The women who founded Queens U. Compliments have since started a hub page for all compliments groups, of which there are now 98, most of them in Canada and the U.S.

Speaking with Time’s Techland blog, Queens U. Compliments co-founder Rachel Albi likened the page to the 2000 movie, "Pay It Forward," about an 11-year-old boy who starts a goodwill movement in which people do favors for people who, in turn, do favors for others.

The compliments forums could have a “contagious effect in a positive sense,” Glenn Stutzky, an instructor at the School of Social Work at Michigan State University, told the Detroit Free Press.

Courtesy of Eyal Hanfling

Eyal Hanfling, a senior at Walt Whitman High School in Bethesda, Md., was inspired to create the Facebook page, "Whitman Compliments."

“I like the idea of having something other than cyber-bullying,” Stutzky said. “This is cyber-graciousness.”

Hanfling said there has been cyber-bullying at his school, but few turned up in submissions to Whitman Compliments. 

“I was really worried that people would take advantage of the system and write horrible things about their classmates and peers,” he told NBC News. But of the 1,500 comments or so submitted over four days, just four or five were unkind, he said. Only one used a curse word.

If anything, the complimenting became competitive. That’s not too surprising for a high school that graduates 88 percent of its students to four-year colleges and that was profiled in a book called, “The Overachievers.”

“Students were overachieving in the compliments,” Hanfling said. “Someone would post a compliment, and someone else would post an even longer, even more supportive and even funnier compliment.”

Among the more carefully considered compliments:

"This is an appreciation post dedicated to your hair. Let us all marvel its beauty."

And:

"Youre the only person I know who can run a 5K with a smile on their face. Your style is impeccable and it looks like you're always swaggin out. You're there in the hard times and the great times and just an amazing friend who I am always happy to be around."

And:

"you're one of the sweetest guys I've ever known. We grew so close last year and I love talking to you because you're such a genuine listener. You're an incredibly strong person and I really admire that. Never change! You're amazing."

Hanfling closed Whitman Compliments at midnight on Thursday. In a column for the student newspaper, the Black and White, he identified himself as the creator and manager of the forum. Not even his parents or younger sister had known. Hanfling wrote:

When was the last time we complimented a random person in one of our classes? When was the last time we actually wished a random athlete “good luck” in the hallway before their game or congratulated someone on their victory at a tournament? Friends can “like” online posts, but real-life conversations are always more meaningful.

After the column was published online, Hanfling enjoyed momentary stardom. He walked into a classroom and received a standing ovation. At a hockey game, he was given a similar reception.

And while he hopes his classmates compliment each other in person now, there was another reason Hanfling curtailed the Facebook page: homework. For the four days that Whitman Compliments existed, Hanfling dedicated his evenings, from 5 p.m. to midnight, to the forum.   

“I do not have enough hours in my day to copy and paste so many compliments,” he said.

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As email becomes the norm and fewer people use traditional mail, the U.S. Post Office in Westminster, Calif.’s Little Saigon neighborhood is an anomaly.

Consider it an unofficial hangout of the world’s oldest, largest, most well-established Vietnamese-American community. It’s a place where nearly 10,000 transactions still take place each month and Global Express Service recently outsold every other U.S. Post Office in the country.

"People feel like this is home," said Raymond Tran, who’s going on his 21st year at the office. "They need help and I’m here to help."

Here, hundreds of customers skip larger, closer and less-busy post offices across Southern California to connect with the Vietnamese-American community in Little Saigon.

Read the story at NBCLosAngeles.com

They send care packages around the world, especially Vietnam, and across the country to their Vietnamese relatives. They also send critical immigration paperwork.

For Tran, known for his high-pitched, infectious laugh, becoming a postal worker has been a goal since he was a teenager.

"We left for freedom," Tran said of his escape from Vietnam when he was 14. "We lost communication with my parents, my brother."

Tran spent a year in a refugee camp in Malaysia wondering if his parents, still in Vietnam, survived. He anxiously waited to hear his name during mail call, hoping for a letter from his parents.

Few letters arrived. Tran later learned the letters had been lost in the mail, and he decided then to dedicate his life to making a difference.

"I have a dream in Malaysia that one day I will be a mailman or something to deliver the mail. Everybody happy to get a piece of mail," he said.

Thirty-five years later, not losing mail remains a priority for Tran, who is married with two adult children who graduated from Southern California universities.

"Nobody helps me except here," Robert Ho, of Santa Ana, said when asked why didn’t go to a closer post office. "He helped me get my package back. The package lost in the mail was worth $500, and he got it back.”

Nearby businesses also value the unlikely hangout. Michael Vo moved his insurance business next door 20 years ago and said he has no regrets.

Tran’s supervisors also laud his performance and have filled his workplace drawers with awards for outstanding service.

"Customers value the service they get from employees at this office, especially Raymond Tran," U.S. Postal Service spokesman Richard Maher said.

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The government's proposal to ban drivers from using cellphones in any way — even with hands-free help — is dividing police and lawmakers alike, who agree on one thing: Any such ban would likely be hard to enforce.

The National Transportation Safety Board urged all 50 states Tuesday to ban drivers from using portable electronic devices, with only two exceptions: You could still use GPS navigation devices, and you could use your cellphone in an emergency.

US calls for ban on in-car phone use ... even with Bluetooth

The effectiveness of any such ban would come down to enforcement by local authorities, something that not all of them agree on.

Michigan State Police are already having a tough time enforcing the state's ban on texting while driving, and expecting troopers to be able to tell whether someone is talking through a tiny earpiece is "an unrealistic expectation for law enforcement," State Trooper Jamie Voss told NBC station WPBN of Traverse City. 

Todd Nehls, sheriff of  Dodge County, Wis., said he also wouldn't support a ban, telling NBC station WTMJ of Milwaukee that "millions of people talk on the cellphone and drive safely every day" — echoing the contention of the Consumer Electronics Association one of two industry trade groups the NTSB singled out to lead development of safer technology.

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"Rather than prohibit using cellphones, we should continue to educate the public about the dangers of using cellphones while driving," Nehls said.

But Tennessee Highway Patrol Sgt. Randall Martin contended that a complete ban would actually be easier to enforce than the state's current ban on texting while driving is illegal. 

Under current law, Martin told NBC station WBIR of Knoxville, it's difficult to tell whether a person is texting or dialing. A total ban would eliminate the guesswork because drivers wouldn't be allowed to touch their phones at all.

"Anything that's going to take a distraction out of a driver's hand or field of view is a bonus," Martin said.

The NTSB's recommendation isn't binding, which means enactment "will probably be a patchwork implementation as it goes and most likely driven by reformers at the state level," said Michael Wolf, a political science professor at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne.

The federal government could bring extra pressure to bear, Wolf told NBC station WISE of Fort Wayne, by enacting measures "to coerce states through withholding federal highway funds or save other grants to move them in that direction."

Lawmakers agreed that putting together a nationwide ban would be difficult.

Delegate Cheryl Glenn, a Democrat from Baltimore who's a member of the Maryland House transportation subcommittee, said a total ban probably isn't realistic in any state, because most offenses wouldn't be considered major driving offenses.

"You can be right next to the police and talking away, and they can't do a thing to you unless you run a red light," Glenn told NBC station WBAL of Baltimore. 

Lawmakers in several other states said essentially the same thing: A ban on phone conversations probably wouldn't fly. 

"I don't think you'll get that passed," Republican Utah state Sen. Lyle Hillyard told NBC station KSL of Salt Lake City.

And Rep. Joe Palmer, chairman of the Idaho House Transportation Committee, said a blanket approach would be especially unworkable in a rural state like his, where long, open stretches of highway pass through multiple unincorporated areas without police agencies.

"I recommend more education," Palmer told NBC station KTVB of Boise. "It's not safe for people to be driving and texting, but it's a bigger issue than that."

An Ohio businessman, meanwhile, raised a separate objection.

"That would have a negative impact on our business," said Derek Temke of A-Abel Heating and Air Conditioning in Dayton. 

Like many other businesses that make house calls — think UPS, FedEx and just about every pizza chain in the country — "I drive around all day, and I am making calls to customers," Temke told NBC station WDTN of Dayton. "It could cost us a lot of money and a lot of time, because we would have to pull over to talk on the phone." 

Even so, Temke said he understands why some people want a total ban.

"Cellphones can be dangerous," he said.

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Medical scientists strongly endorsed the National Transportation Safety Board's recommendation Tuesday to ban nearly all use of cellphones and other portable electronics by drivers, saying the gizmos are just too distracting for the limited multitasking power of the human brain.

"I wholeheartedly support a ban on personal electronic devices, which provide an unprecedented degree of distraction that's very dangerous," said Dr. Lisandro Irizarry, chairman of the emergency department at the Brooklyn Hospital Center in New York.

"Everyone from teenagers to senior citizens is texting," he said in an email to msnbc.com. "It's very easy to get distracted, especially when driving, and end up in the ER."

The NTSB's recommendation specifically said so-called hands-free devices, like Bluetooth headsets, don't solve the problem and should be part of the ban. 

US calls for ban on in-car phone use ... even with Bluetooth

That sounds great to Dr. Marcel Just, director of the Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, a neuroscientist who has studied how using cellphones impairs driving ability.

"Use of cellphones while driving — handheld or not — is really a hazard, a threat to public safety," Just told msnbc.com. "It costs lives."

The problem is that people think they're better drivers than they really are, and so they believe they can multi-task behind the wheel. 

"When you're driving, it feels kind of automatic, so it feels like you're not doing anything, but it's not true," Just said. "Various parts of your brain are working on scanning the road ahead, maintaining your speed, maintaining your lane — all of those things are being done even when it feels like it's not.

Obviously, we can do two things at the same time," he said. "But the critical point is we can't do them as well at the same time."
Processing a conversation with another person consumes 37 percent of the energy that's normally allocated to driving, Just's research indicates. That's "a very, very large percentage that has serious consequences for safety," he said.

While carrying on a conversation in person with a passenger is distracting, "typically there isn't quite as much a social onus on continuing the conversation," he said.

In other words, a passenger who's in the car with you knows enough to shut up if you encounter a hazard on the road. But "with a person on the other end of a cellphone, they don't know to stop talking if something happens," he said. 

While he hasn't quantified the difference, Just said, he's convinced "it's worse with a cellphone."

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Updated at 4 p.m. ET: The government's transportation safety experts recommended Tuesday to ban all American drivers from using portable electronic devices — including cellphones, even if you use a hands-free device.

The recommendation, which isn't binding but which is likely to influence the decisions of Congress and state legislatures in writing  new safety laws, makes only two exceptions: You could still use GPS navigation devices, and you could use your cellphone in an emergency.

"No call, no text, no update, is worth a human life," Deborah Hersman, chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board, said at a news conference in Washington.

Besides calling for government action, the NTSB also urged consumer electronics manufacturers to figure out a way to "disable the functions of portable electronic devices within reach of the driver when a vehicle is in motion" while at the same time being able to turn themselves  back on in an emergency.

Jason Oxman, a senior vice president of the Consumer Electronics Association, said that as far as he knew, "nothing that would meet all of those parameters would exist today."

In general, Oxman  told msnbc.com, the focus should be on drivers' choices, not on "specific devices." He endorsed the NTSB's recommendations to the extent that they would regulate activities that take the driver's eyes off the road — “manual texting while driving, for example, you shouldn't be allowed to do it," he said. But he criticized the safety board's suggestion to disallow hands-free devices like Bluetooth earpieces.

"It may be that NTSB, in searching for a solution, is not aware of all of the technologies that exist today, and that is one reason we look forward to the opportunity to work with them," he said.

Safety advocates have long called for such a ban like the one the NTSB proposed Tuesday to reduce the phenomenon of distracted driving, which the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says killed 3,092 people in 2010.

The NHTSA reported last week that about 20 percent of all drivers and 50 percent of drivers 21 to 24 years old admit to having texted while driving. Overall, more than three-quarters of drivers say they are willing to answer calls on all, most or some trips.

"People continue to make bad decisions about driving distracted — but what's clear from all of the information we have is that driver distraction continues to be a major problem," NHTSA Administrator David Strickland said last week in reporting the numbers. 

Scientists strongly endorse NTSB proposal

But similar studies linking cellphone use to poor driving have been challenged, most recently by researchers at Wayne State University in Detroit, who concluded last month that some earlier studies were seriously flawed.

The report, published in the journal Epidemiology, examined to earlier studies that examined crashes in which cellphone records showed that the driver had used a cellphone. Those studies "likely overestimated the relative risk for cellphone conversations," the researchers said, because they improperly assumed that the drivers were actually in motion when they were on the phone — in other words, they didn't factor in such so-called part-time driving.

Abstract: Cell Phone Use and Crash Risk: Evidence for Positive Bias

Only 10 states ban handheld devices right now, and 35 ban texting while driving.

The recommendation comes following the NTSB's investigation of an August 2010 accident in Gray Summit, Mo., involving a pickup truck, two school buses and several other vehicles. 

Driving and texting: msnbc.com cartoonists weigh in

The accident was blamed on the 19-year-old driver of the pickup, who sent or received 11 texts in the 11 minutes before the pileup, which killed two people and injured 38 others.

"That finding raises a red flag to all of us on the highways," Hersman said.

Full NTSB report on 2010 Missouri crash

The NTSB recommendation wouldn't cover GPS devices, but — if it eventually becomes law — it would ban using your phone for any reason, even with a Bluetooth headset or speakers. The only exception would be to call 911 in an emergency.

NBC News' Tom Costello contributed to this report from Washington.

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