Safety on Facebook is a growing concern throughout the U.S. as more people create Facebook accounts.

Twanda Baker, a training coordinator for the Office of Information Technology, gave a presentation Tuesday on using Facebook’s privacy settings to control who has access to user information. The presentation was a part of a series OIT is giving as part of Cyber Security Awareness Month.

John Baines, associate director of security standards and compliance, said it is important to use Facebook with caution.

“Social media sites are technically no more or no less secure than any other website,” Baines said. “The thing that raises the stakes on social media sites is the personal information that is out there.”

Facebook offers tools to protect user information, and the workshop instructed attendees on how to use them. Although mostly faculty and staff attended the workshop, the topics covered were relevant to all Facebook users.

“This information is for anybody,” Baker said. “If you are going to use [Facebook], use it well.”

The main topic of the workshop was creating and using friend lists.

“People have a lot of Facebook friends. On average, of all the 500 million users, the average number of friends is 130,” Baker said.

Users may not wish to share all of their information with all of their Facebook friends.

“Create lists so that [you] can determine what categories of friends can see what information,” Baker said.

Baker recommends sorting friends into several categories.

“Think about all the lists you might need. I recommend you always have a limited profile for people you do not know that well, maybe you only met them once,” Baker said. “I recommend something for close friends and family… You can post things that are specifically for your close family.”

Controlling access to information can be important when students are friends with faculty and staff.

“I recommend students have a limited profile if they are going to friend professors or advisers,” Baker said.

Another topic at the workshop was changing the default privacy settings.

“Facebook gives you some recommendations; it will say that everybody in the world will be able to see my status, photos, posts, bio, favorite quotes, family and relationships. I disagree with that 100 percent. I always recommend that you choose customize,” Baker said.

Baker also said she stressed the importance tracking changes to Facebook’s privacy settings and features.

“Everybody needs to stay on top of privacy settings. There was one point in time I considered leaving Facebook because they switched everything to open… They are in a good place now, but I do not trust them that much,” Baker said.

Baker warned against keeping too much information open to the Web.

“If someone has your name, where you live and your birthday, they are that much closer to having your identity,” Baker said.

Deborah Booth, who works in security and compliance at OIT, said the information was helpful for her.

“If you didn’t know any better and you keep all the defaults, people can find a lot about you. That is certainly not something that I would want,” Booth said.

Meredith Duyck, a sophomore in management, said she uses Facebook’s privacy settings.

“The only thing that people can see is my profile picture and my status,” Duyck said. “Only my friends can see all of my stuff, because with creepers and stuff it’s not a good idea.”

Duyck said she also utilizes the lists feature to control who can see all of her profile.

“Being at college, I don’t know if [everyone] wants to see everything that is put on my wall — all the pictures that are up. They can only view some things,” Duyck said.

Jonathan Walker, a senior in political science, has a differing opinion about Facebook privacy.

 ”I don’t think it’s a big deal. You shouldn’t be putting anything up on there that you are really worried about people seeing anyways,” Walker said. “If you’re not putting information up on there that you are worried about, it shouldn’t matter who can see it.”