What is Facebook?

Facebook is probably the best known of the social networking sites. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and his friends, originally as a way for students at Harvard University to get to know each other, it's now believed to have over 800 million active users. Some of its functionality – such as Facebook Connect, a way to sign up to other websites using your Facebook login details – appears across thousands of other websites.

Anyone over the age of 13 can use the site. Many parents and grandparents use Facebook to keep in touch with grandchildren and family around the world.

Users create a free account that acts as a profile of them in which they share as much or as little information as they wish. Profiles are usually created using a real name, although some people choose to use an alias or nickname, and are often accompanied by a photograph.

Companies and brands are increasingly building a presence on Facebook, and ‘apps’ such as games and tools used within Facebook are hugely popular.

Facebook’s key benefits and features

• Facebook is free to join and free to use.
• It can be used by anyone wherever they are in the world as long as they have internet access.
• Facebook users can share messages, video links, photographs and websites.
• Facebook can be used as an organisational tool for planning and managing event invitations.
• You can search by name or email to find people.
• By using various privacy settings, users can choose to allow different people to have access to their pages or to deny them this access.
• Facebook is available 24 hours a day so people can communicate without time zone differences causing a problem.

Debbie Brixey is a Digital Unite tutor based in south London.