How (and why) to update your birthday on Facebook, Instagram, and X
Learn how to add or update your date of birth on Facebook, Instagram, and X (formerly Twitter) and control who can see this information.
Why add or update your date of birth on social media?
Several apps and websites need you to fill in your birthday or at least the month and year right when you are creating an account with them.
A correct date of birth (DOB) on Facebook means your friends can send happy birthday wishes, making your day more special. When it comes to Instagram, people you interact with frequently may get a reminder about your birthday. Similarly, when others visit your X profile page on your birthday, a bunch of colorful balloons rise up from the bottom of the screen, informing them of your special day.
In addition to the above social benefits, a date of birth can also be used for these activities.
1) Show you appropriate content: Facebook, X, Instagram, and other services can use your DOB to figure out you’re over 18 and show you posts and news pieces that otherwise may not be suitable for children.
2) Adhere to your country’s law: The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) Children’s Code requires social media companies to ensure proper date of birth is added to people’s profiles. If not, that account can be blocked from being used until DOB is added.
3) Offer friend suggestions: Your date of birth can be used to suggest other accounts in your age group that may be of interest to you.
4) Curate ads: Most social media platforms have checks in place to ensure a mature ad is not shown to a child, and this is possible if the correct date of birth is added to your account.
5) Account security and recovery: A platform may ask to enter the correct date of birth during account recovery, password reset, or when it notices some malicious login attempt. If you added something random, you may not remember it. So, having the correct date of birth added to these important platforms is recommended.
6) Event, communities, groups, and other recommendations: Services like Facebook and X can suggest age-appropriate events, groups, communities, channels, and activities around you based on your added date of birth.
7) Make the profile authentic: Lastly, adding all your details, such as name, username, recovery email or phone number, location, date of birth, and so forth, makes your account authentic to other people. A complete profile also helps the platform differentiate between a person of value and a random unknown troll account or a bot.
Add or update your date of birth on social media profiles
It’s important to note that since your birthday is a fixed detail, social media platforms have a limit on the number of times you can update it.
Secondly, if you run a business, pet, or some other similar account, most platforms suggest you enter the date of birth of the person who owns this account or runs it.
Note that we’re using an iPhone for these steps, but the basics are similar for other devices.
1) Open the Facebook app and tap the hamburger menu icon to go to Settings & privacy > Settings.
2) Tap Personal details in the Meta Accounts Center box.
3) Select Personal details under Account settings.
4) Tap the Birthday field.
5) Hit Edit to change your birthday. If you haven’t already added your date of birth, you can add it here.
6) Furthermore, you can tap Who can see your birthday on Facebook and change its visibility to Public, Friends, or Only Me (no one except you).
Note that Messenger also shares the same birthday as your Facebook account.
Since Meta also owns Instagram, the process of updating birthdays is similar to Facebook.
1) Open the Instagram app on your iPhone, go to your profile screen, and tap the hamburger menu icon from the upper right corner.
2) Tap Accounts Center from the top.
3) Select Personal details on the Meta Accounts Center screen.
4) Tap Birthday, hit Edit, and add your new date, month, and year of birth.
5) You can also tap Who can see your birthday on Instagram and update its visibility to No One, Close Friends List, or Followers you follow back.
X (Twitter)
1) Open the X app, tap your profile picture from the upper left corner, and select Profile.
2) Tap the Edit profile button.
3) Tap the Birth date option to add or update it.
4) X also lets you decide who sees your birthday month and day or year right on this screen.
FAQs
What to do if you aren’t comfortable with sharing your exact DOB?
I understand you may have reservations about sharing your birthday with some platforms. In this case, you can decide on a fake date and note it somewhere safe so you can remember it during account recovery or security. Remember to use an appropriate year so your experience is not curtailed based on age.
If you ask me, I use my real birthday on trusted platforms, and for everything else, I use 01-01-1990. This date is easily memorable and somewhere around my actual age.
How to hide your date of birth from others?
Facebook, Instagram, X, and several other platforms give you the option to hide your date of birth from other users. Find the ‘visibility’ or ‘who can see’ section in account or profile settings to decide who can view your birthday.
On a related note: How to keep track of birthdays on iPhone, iPad, and Mac
Source link: https://www.idownloadblog.com/2024/08/19/how-to-update-birthday-social-media/
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