How to make the most of social networking on Facebook

— -- So you've finally enlisted in Facebook. Only now you're wondering if you ought to just duck.

In the last few days, Facebook faced a firestorm over controversial changes to its "terms of use." That's the legalese tacked onto the bottom of most websites. Critics said Facebook wanted to keep a grip on your information forever. Facebook claimed otherwise. Still, the company reverted to its former policy, for now.

Even before the latest ruckus, users of Facebook have always had to think about how to present information. If you apply a little common sense and balance your tolerance for privacy, Facebook can be a very rewarding place to share ideas, make new friends and rekindle old relationships.

The service just celebrated its fifth birthday, with membership swelling past 175 million. Of course, now that the fastest-growing demographic is over 30, Facebook may not be as "cool" as it once was. It isn't long before newbies encounter the tools of the social-networking trade — from status updates that let everyone know what you are doing or thinking, to posting messages on a friend's profile "wall."

It all comes at you in a news feed that can quickly clutter your home screen with uploaded videos, pictures, links to stories and blog posts: Don't be shocked when a decade-old photo someone tagged of you surfaces.

You can tweak what flows in by clicking "Options for News Feed" at the bottom of your main Facebook page. You can choose to see more events, notes, photos, etc.

Interestingly, there's no simple way to search for old wall posts. The only way to do it is through "Show More Posts" at the bottom of your wall, scrolling all the way back until you find it. Facebook says better filtering and organization are priorities. That's indeed something that needs fixing.

There are 52,000 applications on Facebook that let you do everything from throw snowballs to test your trivia skills. Too many to address here but certainly fodder for a future column.

To provide guidance to those new to Facebook, I've turned to my own social network: my Facebook friends and other members of the service, plus USA TODAY readers who are members. Basic recommendations: