Facebook on Wednesday announced it is rolling out its Reactions feature across the globe, giving everyone a chance to express a broader range of emotions beyond the “Like.”
As the company first promised in October, users now have the option to respond to a post with one of the following emotions: Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad or Angry.
The governing idea behind Reactions is that people don’t always want Like to be their reaction to a post.
If you want to show your sympathy for a friend who just lost his dog, for example, it never felt quite right to “like” a tribute post to his pup. (Of course, one could argue that is what comments are for.) It can also provide Facebook with more nuanced data about what you actually mean when you “like” a post — valuable information for its ever-advancing algorithms.
Using Reactions is pretty simple — you seem to just tap and hold the Like button to call up the other emotions.