The Facebook Guide for People Over 50
by Paul McFedries
The Facebook Guide for People Over 50
Published by
Wiley Publishing, Inc.
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Copyright 2011 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana
Published simultaneously in Canada
ISBN: 978-0-470-87517-9
Manufactured in the United States of America
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About the Author
Paul McFedries is a technical writer who has been authoring computer books since 1991 and has more than 70 books to his credit. Pauls books have sold more than three million copies worldwide. These books include the Wiley titles Twitter Tips, Tricks, and Tweets, 2nd Edition, MySpace Visual Quick Tips, Internet Simplified, iPad Portable Genius, and iPhone 4 Portable Genius. Paul is also the proprietor of Word Spy (www.wordspy.com), a website that tracks new words and phrases as they enter the language. You can visit Paul on the web at www.mcfedries.com or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/paulmcfedries.
Credits
Senior Acquisitions Editor
Aaron Black
Project Editor
Chris Wolfgang
Senior Copy Editor
Kim Heusel
Editorial Director
Robyn Siesky
Vice President and Executive Group Publisher
Richard Swadley
Vice President and Executive Publisher
Barry Pruett
Business Manager
Amy Knies
Senior Marketing Manager
Sandy Smith
Project Coordinator
Kristie Rees
Graphics and Production Specialists
Jennifer Henry
Andrea Hornberger
Quality Control Technician
Rebecca Denoncour
Proofreading
Linda Seifert
Indexing
Steve Rath
Dedication
To Karen, always, and in loving memory of Gypsy and Blue, the best dogs ever.
Acknowledgments
As youll soon see, this isnt so much a How-To book as a What-To book that aims to show you whats available on Facebook, no matter what youre interested in or concerned about. To that end, I spent inordinate amounts of time poking around the seemingly infinite nooks and crannies of Facebook, a task that was often ridiculously fun. Adding to the fun were the great people at Wiley that I got to work with. They included Acquisitions Editor Aaron Black, who was kind enough to ask me to write the book; Project Editor Chris Wolfgang, who has an endless supply of common sense and excellent suggestions; Copy Editor Kim Heusel, who made sure my is were dotted and my ts were crossed, and not the other way around; and Technical Editor Jonny Thaw, who made sure my instructions didnt zig when they were supposed to zag. Very special thanks go out to the lovely and talented Karen Hammond, who helped unearth tons of the Facebook treasures found in this book. Many heartfelt thanks to all of you for outstanding work on this project.
When Facebook announced in May 2010 that it had reached 500 million users, the news appeared in all the usual places technology blogs, major news media outlets, and Web sites dedicated to all things Facebook. However, you also saw a story on the announcement if you were a member of AARP, the nonprofit organization that focuses on people aged 50 and older. That seems slightly odd at first blush. Why would an organization devoted to older adults care about a site that seems to be dominated by teenagers and young adults? For the answer to that conundrum you could turn to AARP itself, which had recently published the results of a study that looked at, among other things, the use of social networking among people aged 50 and up. The main result was that of people aged 50+ who used the Internet, 31 percent used Facebook (out of a total of 37 percent who used social networking sites).
The reality is that Facebook is not a site just for the very young. People of all ages use Facebook, but the majority of Facebook users are over 35, and the fastest growing segment on Facebook are people aged 50 and over. Why is Facebook so popular with those of us in the 50+ set? Probably because the things you can do on Facebook are more or less the same as the things you already do in your life: Chat with friends; view photos of your kids or grandkids; talk politics or gossip; play a game of Scrabble or fill in a crossword; learn more about your favorite hobby.
And thats where The Facebook Guide for People Over 50 comes in. Yes, this book shows you how to use Facebook with introductory guides to setting up your profile, learning the Facebook lingo, working with photos, and more. However, this is really a book about what you can do with Facebook. This book is mostly a comprehensive resource to the best that Facebook has to offer in a wide variety of topics: politics, history, charities, shopping, personal finance, fitness, health, medical conditions, aging, arts, media, hobbies, food, travel, and so much more.