Do you remember when you had to actually type out a coherent sentence or paragraph to tell people how you felt about a particular post on Facebook? Well, those days are over now thanks to Facebook’s newest feature, Reactions.
What are Reactions?
See the heart and smiley emoji above? Those are Reactions. Instead of simply liking, commenting on, or sharing a post, you can hover your cursor over the “Like” button (or hold it down if you’re on a mobile device like an iPhone or Android) and 6 different Reactions will pop up. You can now let the person who posted the status know whether you simply liked their post or you can post one of the new emoji Reactions. These 5 new emojis include:
- “Wow!”
- “Angry!”
- “Sad!”
- “Love!”
- And last but not least, “Haha!”
I for one think this is an attempt to respond to the people who claim that simply “liking” a post about the death of someone or a generally bad event is disrespectful. I have seen that argument made 100 times over and have never really understood the outrage. And actually, I can’t really think of anything more disrespectful of the dead or the misfortunate than an “Sad” emoji. Facebook’s representatives claim that the new feature is due to a massive request from users that something more strongly positive than just “liking” something was needed and that the “Love” Reaction has gotten an overwhelmingly positive response from test markets and that could very well be the truth.
Call me old fashioned but I think there is nothing more loving, more wow-ing, more saddening, more angering, or more hilarious than a beautifully worded and well thought-out comment from a dear friend or even a complete stranger. Come on, people. We really can’t even spare the few extra seconds to type out “Haha” anymore?
