A guide to using facebook

What is facebook?

Facebook is a website that allows you to create your own personal public profile, and connect with other people registered on the site. It describes itself as an 'online social network'.

Facebook isn't the only social networking website, but it is the world’s most popular such site. Other popular social networking sites include MySpace (which is predominantly centred on people’s musical interests) and Linked In (a professional and work-focused network), but there are thousands of smaller, more niche networks too.

What you can do on facebook

• Create your own profile, listing your interests, hobbies, and any other personal information you would like to share (or as little as you like - it’s up to you) 
• Find your friends and family also on facebook and add them to your social network as 'friends'. Once someone has been added as a friend on facebook, you will be able to see their updates and join in if you want to. 
• Send messages to friends and family, or write a public message on someone's profile (this is referred to as ‘commenting’ or ‘posting’) 
• Upload photos to your profile and view your friends’ photos
• Social networks, such as facebook, have a lot of other options and functions for you to explore and enjoy.

How to join facebook

Firstly, visit facebook to register and create a profile. You will at least need to fill out some basic details, including your name and email address – this information will start you off on building up your profile. Don’t worry if you don’t have a digital photograph of yourself to hand, you can always add one later, and remember - only fill in the details you’re comfortable sharing.

Once you have completed the registration process (three short steps), you will see your new profile page. You can then enter extra information if you wish - such as your interests, your schools, university, and place of work.

For more information and a step-by-step guide to setting up your profile,  visit facebook's help pages

Finding friends

Once you have a profile on facebook, you can find people to be friends with. There are a number of ways of finding friends and relatives - for more information,  visit facebook.

Remember to log out from your account when you’ve finished, by clicking on the ‘account’ button at the top right of the screen to ‘sign out’. And, when you want to log back into facebook again, go to www.facebook.com and enter your email address and password in the top right hand corner.

Find Age UK on facebook: