Social media

Social networks, such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and LinkedIn can be a great way to keep in touch with people wherever they are in the world. You can use it to find old friends and stay in touch with them, as well as share pictures, videos or website links and find out the latest news.

As well as being a really handy way to keep in touch with people, social networks can also be great fun. You can not always be with your friends, but you can still chat or share experiences with them online.

Once you become a member of a social network, you can see who else is there, find your friends, then start connecting and sharing with them. The people you decide to connect with will be called ‘friends’, ‘followers’ or something similar depending on which social network you’re using. These people will be able to see and comment on anything you decide to share, although you can usually change these settings if you want to. Think about who you want to connect with and who you want to see the things that you share.

Facebook

This is one of the most popular social networks. Use Facebook to connect with friends and relatives who are already signed up. The people you connect with on Facebook are known as friends. Facebook will show you the things that your friends have written or shared. These things are known as posts. You can also use Facebook to add your own status updates, respond to your friends' updates or send them direct messages.

When you join Facebook, you'll have your own personal page called your profile. Your Facebook profile page is also called your timeline and is your very own page on the site. You can use it to add photos, leave updates and keep in touch with others. Your profile helps other people on Facebook find you.

Signing up to Facebook

  1. To make your own profile, you need to sign up and enter your full name, your gender, and your date of birth.
  2. You’ll also need to provide either your mobile number or email address.
  3. You’ll need to create a password. Make sure it’s safe and secure, easy to remember, but not easy for other people to guess. A secure password should be a mixture of letters and numbers. Phrases that mix numbers and letters are safer and easy to remember eg. Iam50yearsold.
  4. Facebook will then send a message to the email address or mobile number you have given, asking you to confirm your account by selecting a link in the email or entering the code from the text message.

Once you’ve signed up you can add the information you want to show on Facebook.

Facebook news feed

The news feed is the first page you’ll see when you log in to Facebook. Your news feed will show any messages, photos and updates from friends. When you first join, your news feed will be pretty empty until you add your friends and family.

Adding friends on Facebook

  1. Select the search box at the top of the page and type a friend or family member’s name.
  2. Facebook will then show you a list of matches. You can tell if it’s the right person from their photo.
  3. To add them as a friend, select the 'Add friend' button. There are two add friend buttons - select either one.
  4. After selecting the Add friend button, it changes to 'Friend request sent'. Now you have to wait for them to accept your request. Until then you will not be able to see their posts in your news feed.
  5. Once they’ve accepted, you can see their status updates and photos on your news feed, and they can see yours. When you’re ready you can post something and start a conversation online with them.

Accepting friend requests on Facebook

The red number at the top of the page over the ‘people’ icon shows you that you have a friend request waiting. Facebook alerts you with numbers in this way when someone connects with you. Click on it to see who it’s from

If you want to connect with them, select 'Confirm'

If the request is from someone you do not know, or do not want to connect with, you can select 'Not now' to ignore it.

Privacy

To manage who can see you and your information on Facebook, open 'Privacy Settings and Tools'. This will allow you to edit who can see your posts, who can contact you and who can look you up.

If your setting is 'Public' anyone to see what you post on Facebook and look you up. If you're a private person choose 'Friends'. These settings can be changed at any time.

Notifications

You'll probably receive emails when your friends put something onto Facebook. If you do not want to receive emails, you can turn email notifications off:

  1. Open 'Settings and Notifications'.
  2. Select 'edit' against Email Address.
  3. You'll then have three options - try selecting only notifications about your account, security and privacy.
  4. Select the button next to this option.

This can be changed at any point if you want to continue to receive the emails.

Learn more

Free courses on using Facebook and other social media networks are available on the Learn My Way website.

To register for Learn My Way you'll need to enter your name and email address, choose a password. If you're learning from home, click the ‘Centre’ box and check the ‘I don’t have a centre’ box.