How to Sign Up for Facebook

By Carolyn Abram from Facebook For Dummies, 4th Edition

Officially, all you need to join Facebook is a valid e-mail address. You get started by going to the Facebook sign-in page. You fill in some basic information, and then Facebook e-mails you a registration confirmation.

As you can see, you need to fill out a few things:

First and Last Name: Facebook is a place based on real identity. It’s not a place for fake names or aliases. Numerous privacy settings are in place to protect your information, so use your full real name to sign up.
E-mail: You need to enter your valid e-mail address here. Facebook asks you to enter your e-mail twice to make sure there are no typos and your e-mails will actually get to you.
Password: As with all passwords, using a combination of letters and numbers is a good idea for your Facebook password. It’s probably not a good idea to use the same password for every site you join.
Gender (I am): Facebook uses your gender information to construct sentences about you on the site. Especially in other languages, it’s weird to see sentences like “Jennifer added a photo of themself.” If you want to hide your gender on your Profile, you’ll be able to do so after you sign up.
Birthday: Enter your date of birth. If you’re shy about sharing your birthday, don’t worry: You’ll be able to hide this information on your Profile later.
Security Check: The security check on Facebook is in the form of a CAPTCHA. A CAPTCHA is that funky-looking word-in-a-box. Computers can’t read CAPTCHAs, but humans can. Asking you to type the word in a CAPTCHA is Facebook’s way of making sure you're a real person, not a spam-producing computer or robot. You see the CAPTCHA after filling out your information and clicking Sign Up.

After you’ve filled out this information, click Sign Up (that’s the big green button). Congratulations: You have officially joined Facebook!

When you click Sign Up, you are agreeing to Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities and Privacy Policy. Most websites have fairly similar Terms and Policies, but if you’re curious about just what Facebook’s say, you can always follow the links at the bottom of every Facebook page.

Once you are signed up, Facebook puts you a three-step Getting Started Wizard to help start you find friends, fill in your profile, and upload your profile picture.