If you have been putting off joining Facebook, now might be the time for you to reconsider. Social networks can be very helpful to connect people, update critical information, get breaking news and find out where and how your favourite people and products are supplied locally. You can also buy and sell on Facebook Marketplace - perfect if you are having a clean out.

Facebook also has some great connection tools like Facebook Messenger where you can use voice and video to make calls to your family and friends, you can even set up group chats together.

To create a Facebook account from your computer:

1. Go to www.facebook.com
2. Enter your name, email or mobile phone number, password, date of birth and gender.
3. Click Sign Up.
4. To finish creating your account, you need to confirm your email or mobile phone number. Confirming your email or mobile number helps Facebook know that they're sending account information to the right place.

Alternatively, you can download the Facebook app from the App Store or Google Play on your mobile and choose 'Create new Facebook account'.

Facebook has a easy to use help centre to answer all the questions you might have about adding friends, connecting, following people and adding pictures and updates to your feed and to your profile.

You can search for people and businesses, groups or organisations you want to connect with by typing their name into the search bar at the top of the page.

You can 'like' or love or laugh at someone’s post, or comment or share their post by clicking your mouse or tapping on the screen on the icons.

If you are worried about your privacy and safety when using Facebook and who will be able to see and share your content, you can manage your privacy settings and use the Facebook privacy checkup tool to make sure you are comfortable and confident.

In the top right hand corner of your page you will see these icons:

• Click on the first one to see who has requested to be your friend, you can decide if you want to say yes or no to them.
• Click on the second one to see if anyone has messaged you directly or you can message someone directly that you are friends with. Many businesses also use this messenger service now to talk to their customers.
• Click on the bell icon to see any notifications about people who have like or commented on your posts.
• Click on the question mark icon to ask a question or get help.

Facebook keeps you logged in until you choose to log out, which means you don't have to keep entering your email and password each time. But if you share the device with anyone else, remember that they will be able to access your Facebook account because it will automatically open up unless you log out.

Once you are all set up and have connected with some friends, local community groups and businesses, you can log in to your account whenever you feel like it and find out what is happening and let others who are connected to you know how you are, how you are feeling, what you need and generally stay in touch with the world.