Titan Tech Talk

Just about everyone has a Facebook page.  For instance, my mother recently got in on the action.  There's no doubt that Facebook is more popular than it has ever been.  As a college student, be aware who can see what.

Even if someone doesn't take pictures of themselves at a party, someone else may have and they can tag people in them.  That means that anyone who can see your photos can now see you doing whatever you did when whomever took that photo and caught you in the act.  They don't need your permission to post a photo of you.  And now everyone can see it, unless you do something about it.

Facebook has privacy settings that can prevent people from seeing things on your profile.  While on your "home" screen on Facebook, float your mouse over "settings" located on the upper right-hand side of the screen.  This will cause a drop-down menu to come up.  Choose the second option called "privacy settings".  On the "privacy" screen that displays, choose the first option called "profile."  Now you can see all the different options you have with regard to who can see what.

The first setting on the basic profile privacy screen can limit who can see your profile altogether.  You may allow "everyone" to see your profile which is exactly what it sounds like.  Everyone will be able to search for and see your profile.  However, depending on the settings below "profile," they may not be able to see everything on your profile.  If you'd rather not like to have everyone see your profile, you may change the "profile" setting to allow only people who are your Facebook friends to see it by changing the setting from "everyone" to "only friends."  You can also allow "friends of friends" to see your profile, everyone on "my networks and friends" to see your profile, or you could customize the setting to allow a more specific type of filtering for your profile.

These same kinds of settings are available below "profile" for things like "basic info," "personal info," "status and links," "photos tagged of you," "videos tagged of you," "friends," "wall posts," "education info," and "work info."  So you could allow "everyone" to see your profile, but "only friends" would be able to see "photos tagged of you."

Notice at the top of this screen is a tab marked "contact information."  The same sorts of privacy settings are available for your instant messenger screen name, mobile phone, other phone, current address, Web site, residence and e-mail addresses.

Facebook is a relatively secure social networking site.  There are a whole lot of kids who are not of age that they need to be careful to protect.  Those protections can be used to protect you.  Those pictures you'd rather keep out of the hands of potential employers, for instance?  Make "photos tagged of you" visible to "only friends."  Don't blindly befriend people online.  If you're sent a friend request, look at the person's profile and decide for yourself if you think this person is a friend.

If you haven't created your own Facebook profile, hopefully you can now see that you're not necessarily opening yourself up to the entire world.  You don't even necessarily need to use your real name, though you won't have much luck having anyone find you at all if you don't.

Facebook is an extremely useful tool if you use it for what it is intended for.  Be aware, however, how other people might use it.