Sex on the Facebook Sign Up Form

Each pixel on Facebook.com is highly tested to maximize sign ups. It is interesting to see the word “Sex” used so subtly, even though you didn’t notice your subconscious did.

The word “Sex” is extremely powerful,  it gets people excited. One big reason a lot of students sign up for Facebook is to see what their crush (slang for romantic interest) is doing.  So seeing the word “Sex” has to help peak their interest to sign up for Facebook.

Google Plus and most sign up forms I’ve seen around the web use “Gender” instead of “Sex” (see screen shots below).

Do you think Facebook is using Sex to their advantage? I’d love to know in the comments.

13 Comments

  1. I can’t believe I never noticed that.

    Yes, I do think they are using it to their advantage. Those guys test everything and I’m sure that was not overlooked.

    • Tom I agree. You are technically correct. They are not the same thing and I believe 99.9% of the population understands that too.

      It is highly unlikely that Facebook didn’t test using the word “Gender” vs. “Sex” though.

  2. Nice find. I doubt anything is accidental on that page since its their sign up form. Initially the single most important page on their site.

  3. All I can say is you got me… I was looking forward to something scandalous when I opened the email… so I’m pretty sure that language is working well for them.

    I was going to check out archive.org to see whether it’s always been “Sex” but Facebook blocks that 🙁

  4. My guess is that they probably needed to appeal to the lowest common denomination in terms of education. Think about when you have to fill out government or state forms and their usage, it’s nearly always sex m/f , so people are conditioned to that field. Gender as of late has become more prominent to be more politically correct, but brings with it all sorts of baggage. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/feminism-gender/#ProSexDis

    Also, here’s an interesting exchange we had around this topic with someone that was clearly more in-the-know than we were. http://bit.ly/LtX1sG

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