Changing Your Facebook Profile Picture

Recently, a friend of mine asked me how she could change her profile picture in Facebook, so I decide to change mine to see how the process went. It was very easy to do and I think any Boomer should be able to follow the simple instructions in this Yahoo answers.

It's probably best to get the new picture ready (select it, know what file it is in) before you swap out pictures. Then you just go to your profile, move your mouse over your picture, and see the menu that pops up. Click on "Change Picture" and follow the instructions to upload a new picture or get rid of the one you have.  Actually, I liked my friend's old picture. But everyone has the right to change their face to the world any time they want, and Facebook does make it easy.

My friend's difficulty made me realize the tremendous differences we all have in our knowledge of  programs, even ones we use frequently. We may know Facebook enough to use it to update our walls and communicate with friends, but if we let a younger member of our family set up our profile page, we may not know how use some of the other functions.

The Help function on Facebook is really hidden, down at the bottom right corner of the page. It would be nice if the wise people at Facebook put it somewhere people are actually going to look for it.

When I first started using Facebook, I was baffled by the notice that came with  accepting a holiday card (for example) that said "Allowing [Put Application or Game name here] access will let it pull your profile information, photos, your friends' info, and other content that it requires to work. I thought it would make me give Facebook access to my entire email address book. Instead, what really happens is that Facebook looks at the friends and relatives you have on the site, and ASKs you if you want to send something to them. You can send something to all, some or none of them. In other words, the warning sounds scarier than it really is.

Anyway, I hope this information helps my friend swap out her picture. She could have found helpful info in many ways: by plugging in "change profile picture on Facebook" into a search engine, by looking at Yahoo Answers or a similar site, or by consulting the Help function on Facebook.  I'm glad she asked me.