How should hide my real identity from my family and neighbours on Facebook?

[Rain]

The entire point of facebook is a social networking site. It is used to keep in touch with friends, find new ones, and find friends you haven't seen in years, as well as join groups with similar interests to you. Many people have their family on there as well.

Facebook is a very popular and "clean" site. So unless you are under 13 (in which case you shouldn't be signing up to stuff like this anyway) or you have crazy parents, then you really shouldn't feel "shameful" about using it.

Tbh if you want to conceal your entire identity then it won't work. You're right your family won't know you are on there, but neither will anyone else. So you will have zero contacts making your account completely pointless because to your friends and schoolmates you appear as a stranger.


My 86 year old grandmother, 2 uncles, sister, cousins, neighbours, a few ex college teachers, and church friends all use facebook and have me added in their contacts.

Now what would be better is to make an account that is actually you (if not your real name then a nick name, for example Charlotte Smith becomes Lottie Lollipop Smith, if you type your full name into facebook search you will see that even if your name is very rare there are at least 7 others with the same name on facebook. If it's a more common name then there could be thousands, so if someone did try to search you out, whose to know?) add your networks so friends can find you, but just conceal that information. (Don't worry, an outsider cannot break into a network they are not part of, example a college)

You can chose to conceal your age, date of birth, city, school/college networks and your relationship status from your front page. And heck, if you have a display picture of homer simpson or a cat or something then you won't even need to upload a photo of yourself.

You can also add people as limited profile, so they are even more restricted on what they see on your home page.

But....behind the scenes where only you can see you will still have access to all your networks etc. So you can add friends from your school/work/town and similar. And they will know who you are enough to add you back.

That's what I recommend. But I don't suggest signing up to facebook if you believe it is shameful, or you are too young, or your family don't want you to do it, just asking for trouble.