Finally, after a year of tinkering and developing, Facebook has released the expanded “Reactions” they have been boasting about for the last few months. Instead of just liking a post, you can now expand your emotional repertoire to express feelings such as “Love,””haha,” “wow,” “Sad” and “Angry.”
Although users desperately requested a dislike button for their internet rage, Facebook has opted out on providing such reaction at this time. Instead, posts will now show a variety of different reactions that will give a better emotional indicator on how posts are doing.
The roll out came after Facebook decided that simply “liking” something wasn’t enough to express an emotional response:
“Everyone’s had one of these posts in News Feed where they’re like, I want to respond in some way, but ‘like’ doesn’t feel appropriate at all.” – Tom Alison, Director Of Engineering
To determine which emotional responses they would implement, Facebook examined the one-worded comments that people left on their friends’ content. They then narrowed that initial list down by testing the reactions in several test countries, like Ireland and Spain, and taking feedback and usage to determine the final list, which rolled out overnight for US users.
Although the “like” will continue to reign king on Facebook, the new introduction of emotional responses is a sign that Facebook is trying to cater to your emotional needs.
You can read the full report on The Verge.
Introducing ReactionsToday is our worldwide launch of Reactions — the new Like button with more ways to express yourself. Not every moment you want to share is happy. Sometimes you want to share something sad or frustrating. Our community has been asking for a dislike button for years, but not because people want to tell friends they don’t like their posts. People wanted to express empathy and make it comfortable to share a wider range of emotions. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the right way to do this with our team. One of my goals was to make it as simple as pressing and holding the Like button. The result is Reactions, which allow you to express love, laughter, surprise, sadness or anger. Love is the most popular reaction so far, which feels about right to me!
Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, February 24, 2016
