Michael Miller - Facebook for Grown-Ups: Use Facebook to Reconnect with Old Friends, Family, and Co-Workers

Michael Miller

800 East 96th Street,
Indianapolis, Indiana 46240 USA

Facebook for Grown-Ups, Second Edition

Copyright 2012 by Pearson Education, Inc.

All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher. No patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information contained herein. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Nor is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7897-4902-4
ISBN-10: 0-7897-4902-5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data is on file.

First Printing: December 2011

Associate Publisher
Greg Wiegand

Acquisitions Editor
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Technical Editor
Vince Averello

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Michael Miller has written more than 100 nonfiction how-to books in the past two decades, including Ques Absolute Beginners Guide to Computer Basics, Windows 7 Your Way, and The Ultimate Web Marketing Guide. He is also the author of Ques Facebook Essentials video and Pearson Higher Educations Introduction to Social Networking textbook.

Mr. Miller has established a reputation for clearly explaining technical topics to nontechnical readers and for offering useful real-world advice about complicated topics. More information can be found at the authors website, located at www.molehillgroup.com.

To Sherry, were not getting olderwere just getting better.

Thanks to the usual suspects at Que Publishing, including but not limited to Greg Wiegand, Michelle Newcomb, Charlotte Kughen, Seth Kerney, Jovana San Nicolas-Shirley, and technical editor Vince Averello. And, of course, to all my Facebook friendswhether I actually know you or not.

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A confession:

Im not as young as I used to be.

Back in the day, I used to be known as a young Turk, a whiz kid, a young man with potential. But Im no longer Turkish, dont have a lot of whiz left, and long ago gave up on realizing that potential thing. I got older.

Somewhere along the line I acquired a big house and a bigger mortgage, got married (to my high school sweetheart), and inherited kids (well, stepkids) and grandkids (also stepped). I look at what all the younger people in my household are doing and realize that Im not doing anything remotely like that anymore. Im an old guy kind of set in his waysincluding the way I use technology.

Now, I write a lot of books about technology. To some degree, how a 50-year-old person uses Windows is pretty much the same as how a 20-year-old person does; Windows is Windows, after all. I get by.

But theres this new thing called social networking. Its technology related because you have to use your computer (or, in the case of the youngsters, your cell phone) to do it. And from what Ive seen, how the young people use social networking is quite a bit different from how my wife and I do it. Theres a definite generational difference herewhich is where this book comes in.

Facebook for Grown-Ups focuses on the biggest and most happening social networking site, Facebook, and how people of our generation are using it. Trust me; we dont use Facebook the same way our kids do. Its a different experience for us, and one that has to be learned.

Did you know, for example, that you can use Facebook to keep in touch with all your family membersincluding distant relatives? Or that you can find long-lost friends on the Facebook siteincluding that cute guy you had a crush on back in high school? Or that you can share your family photos with these friends and relatives? And keep them updated on what youre up to these days?

Thats right, grown-ups use Facebook to get connected with the people we know today, as well as those we knew in years gone by. We also use Facebook to keep tabs on our kids, to drop them a note from time to time, and to see what mischief theyre getting themselves into. (And they are getting themselves into mischief; trust me.)

The key is figuring out how to find all the people you want to find and to share all the information you want to sharewithout sharing too much personal information about yourself. Theres a bit of a trick to doing the social networking thing while still maintaining a semblance of privacy online.

I try to cover all that in this book. My focus is on using Facebook, yes, but as responsible adultsnot as carefree kids. Because, lets face it, we havent been carefree kids for quite some time now. Sad, I know, but true.