It’s a big day for Facebook users: Now you can express feelings beyond “like.”
Facebook has launched a refreshed version of the “Like” button called “Reactions,” which allows you to select from one of six feelings including the classic “like.”
The new like buttons are: Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, and Angry. You can use them on any post across Facebook:
Reactions are available globally on both desktop and mobile, Facebook says. To turn them on, simply make sure your Facebook app is up to date, and/or refresh your Facebook page in your browser. The reactions can be activated by holding down the “Like” button on the app, or by hovering over the “Like” button on desktop.
Once you see the reactions pop up, move your mouse or finger along the available reactions to select which one you want. Each of the faces will come to life once you mouse/swipe over it.
You’ll notice that Facebook now shows you how many people have liked, loved, haha’d, wow’d, sad’d (?), or angry’d a post. This’ll be a good way to see how people are reacting to a news story:
In a blog post, Facebook says they’ve been testing Reactions for a year through focus groups, surveys, and localized roll-outs to decide on the right emotions. “We also looked at how people are already commenting on posts and the top stickers and emoticons as signals for the types of reactions people are already using to determine which reactions to offer.”
It’ll be interesting to see how users end up using the new options. Will they take their selection seriously? Will they use reactions like “Wow” and “Angry” in a tongue-in-cheek manner?
The reactions are only available for posts, not comments. We hope Facebook eventually rolls out the various options for reacting to commenting, because there’ve been lots of times when I want to react differently to someone’s remark.
I bet that people will still continue to use the “Like” button most. When browsing through your feed, it’s easiest to tap like and to move on to the next story. Adding a reaction takes a little more time, which means most people will prefer to lean toward a quick like (once the excitement of the Reactions feature wears off, that is).
So can we expect a “Dislike” button one day? Facebook appears keen to use their Reactions features in place of an explicit “dislike” option. Speaking on the matter last year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that he wanted a potential “dislike” option to “express empathy,” and today’s launch of Reactions was exactly what he was hinting at.
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