Facebook adds haha, love, wow reactions to ‘like’ button

Facebook already shows how many people like a post and lets you tap or click on the count for a list of people. Instead, the world has been graced with Facebook‘s new “Reactions” – emoticons that users can use to clarify their emotions when they like a post or picture.

And as of today, Facebook users now have access to a total of six “Reactions”.

The feature has been in testing for months in different regions of the world, including Ireland, Spain, Japan and Portugal, where Facebook took surveys and gathered information on how people actually use the feature. Only after hovering over or holding down the “Like” button for a few seconds will the new options appear.

What do you think of the new “Reactions”?

As Twitter said: “We know that at times the star could be confusing, especially to newcomers. It was a fun and interesting challenge”.

Facebook said it would decide later how new reactions should be weighted to personalize news feeds. The new feature is now available on Android, iOS and the web.

Facebook has been testing alternatives to “like” in about a half-dozen countries.

“We would analyze the data and organized the short comments into categories”.

Should Facebook have given us the “dislike” button so many of us wanted? It was really important for us that the Reactions were universally recognizable. “That doesn’t seem like the kind of community we want to create”. But when a friend shares a sad or angry post, it usually feels awkward sending a Like their way.

“Not every moment you want to share is happy. This represents how people are using Facebook”.

Rather than just adding a “Dislike” button, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained back in October why the site planned to offer several “reactions”. There could be more options added to the feature down the line. We’re going to be learning a lot. It will then show you a number of reactions, including wow and haha.