On Facebook, you can control who sees the things that you share. The different settings are: everyone, just friends, friends except acquaintances, only me (you), custom or close friends. As you can see, if you want to adjust the privacy controls, you can actually fine tune them to match quite a few of your preferences. Some things might be fine for everyone or for friends. Some other things might only be suitable to close friends and not acquaintances. Obviously, in order to differentiate between friends, close friends and acquaintances, you have to sort out your list of friends.

Right now, let’s work on sharing something. Last time, we asked you to put up a new status message. Let’s share a photo. Here are the steps:

1. Before you begin, find out where the photo is on your computer. We like to keep things on our desktop, or in My Documents, but on the desktop is preferred. Why?  My Documents is simply a link to a folder inside the Windows folder. To access the things inside of it, you have to sort through a list of folders to find the one you want. We prefer to make a new folder on the desktop, name it My Stuff, and plunk everything in there. Then, when it comes time to back up the computer, we just burn that folder to a DVD. Anyway, find a pic somewhere on your computer. You can download one from the Internet, too. Usually downloads are saved in a Downloads folder, right?

2. On your main Facebook page, the one you get to when you click Facebook up on the top left, look for the ‘What’s on your mind?’ slot at the top of the page. There are three choices there. Click on ‘Add photo/video’.

3. The next box that pops down will show ‘Upload photo/video’/Use webcam/Create photo album’. Right now we are only uploading a single pic. Click ‘Upload photo/video’.

4. The next little menu asks you to ‘Say something about this…’. You can do this later so for now, click on the Choose File button. What pops up now is a map, more or less, of a folder on your computer. On the far left, at the top, look for Desktop or Downloads. Click on a folder, depending on where the photo is. When you see the photo you want to share, click on it then choose ‘Open’ down on the bottom right. Truth be told, you aren’t actually opening the picture. All you’re doing is saying to Facebook or Windows “This is the photo I want.” That menu will close.

5. You’re back on your Facebook page now but to the right of Choose File should be a bunch of letters or numbers that end in ‘.jpg’. That’s the file name, if you don’t know already. Write some words in the space above it, something like ‘This is me when I was five’ or whatever it is you want to describe the photo.

6. On the lower right of that box, look for the word ‘Post’. You can’t miss it. It’s in blue. Just to the left of it is a little down arrow. It probably has the word ‘Public’ in small letters. Click on the arrow and choose who you want to share the photo with. Choose Friends. Then click the word ‘Post’.

7. There you go! You’ve just shared a photo on Facebook. At this point, that photo is only available to your friends. You can customize that setting by choosing the Custom option and typing in people you want to hide the photo from or open up the photo to Friends of friends. Once you figure out the settings, it’s easy to adjust your privacy settings to your own level of security. It’s far better to do it now when you’re learning about Facebook.

TIP: This is a caveat about tags and tagging.  Keep this in mind constantly when you are using Facebook. While you may not know what a tag is, anyone who is ‘tagged’ in a photo or note or video can see the shared item, no matter what your privacy settings are. Unless you adjust your settings, friends of people who are tagged can also see the post (the thing you shared).

Tip: Tagging someone means that you highlight their name in the photo or video by typing in a menu. That person will get a notice that they have been tagged and will, probably, come and see what that thing is that they’ve been tagged in. It’s another way of saying, “Hey! Take a look at this!” You can’t prevent tags but you can adjust who sees the item after it’s tagged.

Last Tip: Facebook is all about sharing. To a certain extent, you can control who sees what you share. If you don’t want people to see something, don’t share it. It’s as simple as that. Facebook changes its policies all the time. Get used to that. What isn’t shared today might be shared tomorrow. If you post something, someone at Facebook may see it. No matter what you put on Facebook someone will see it, even if that someone works at Facebook. Forewarned is forearmed. Don’t post something that you wouldn’t want your friends…or family…to see. But Facebook is fun, so relax and enjoy it.

Thanks for reading!