Facebook is a fantastic, easy to use service that allows friends and family members all over the world to share news, videos and photos instantly at the touch of a button. This makes it the perfect medium for senior citizens to keep in contact with out of town children and grandchildren, sharing in their everyday lives, staying connected and apart of the family circle.
Unfortunately many people of all ages are apprehensive or afraid of the perceived difficulties of signing up, using the service and managing their privacy.
The great thing to realize is that Facebook has been developed specifically for ease of use and the steps.
How To Sign Up For Facebook
* The first thing to do is to go to www.facebook.com, right on the first page is all the sign up information.
* Put your first name, last name and email address in the right fields, if you don’t already have an email, sign up for a free email at gmail.com, yahoo.com or any other free provider.
*Then choose a password, make this password a mixture of numbers, upper and lowercase letters, don’t choose anything obvious like your birthday or anniversary that anyone could guess.
* Put your birthdate in the right field and choose a sex, then click the ‘create an account’ button
* You will then be taken to another page asking if you’d like help to find friends, put your email address in the email field and click find friends, it will automatically look through all your email contacts for people to link you up with. If you don’t have email contacts, or you don’t want to do this, click ‘skip this step’
* The next window will ask you questions about your life like what school you went to or where you live, this lets Facebook link you up with other people associated with those places. Click ‘save and continue’ if you filled out any information Click ‘skip’ if you don’t want to.
* The next stage is asking for a picture of yourself for your profile, you could take one with your web cam or use a picture already on your computer, this help people who are trying to link up as friends make sure they have the right person. Click ‘save and continue’ if you added a picture. Click ‘skip’ if you don’t want to.
*Facebook will then ask you for your password again to confirm.
*You will then be taken to your brand new Facebook profile. You will see a bar at the top asking you to confirm via your email, click ‘go to your email’ and open the new message from Facebook that should be in your inbox. Click the link contained and you’re done.
Privacy Alert
Facebook has recently changed its privacy settings to friends only by default. This means you don’t have to do anything complicated to protect your privacy. Anytime you post a picture or comment, only people who you have accepted as friends will see it. Let common sense prevail and never post anything online that contains your real phone number, address, bank accounts or other private details.
A word on Privacy Issues at Facebook:
Facebook and other social media sites frequently change their Terms Of Use and Privacy Policies. Exercise the utmost care if you want your profile to remain private.
If you only want to connect with a specified set of family or friends, double check the privacy options.
Also note, a user on Facebook does not have to post anything. You can join groups, follow friends, follow groups or organizations within the site, enjoy connecting to your private network of family and/or friends while keeping a small digital footprint.
Social media for seniors is a fun, easy and friendly way to keep in contact with your friends and family, have fun and enjoy!
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