Facebook's Reactions

Today, Facebook finally rolled out its new Reactions, a broader array of symbols to complement the traditional "like" button. The six new emojis let us express more refined feelings, such as love, laughter, sadness, and anger, and they are animated.

The selections took Facebook a while. After user testing, the company settled on these six winners and decided how to represent them on a page. Too many cluttered posts, but too few got lost. Instead, the three most common reactions to posts will appear below each.

Quoted in Wired, Vyvyan Evans, a professor of linguistics at Bangor University said, "The stratospheric rise of emoji is essentially fulfilling the function of nonverbal cues in spoken communication." We miss, for example, facial expressions and gestures in Facebook posts and text messages, so emojis help us express our feelings.

Chevrolet seems first out of the gate to use the new Reactions in an ad. In this commercial, the company tells us, "Chevrolet looked out into a sea of likes and thought the time was right to love. Introducing the new Chevy Malibu. Start Loving."

Discussion Starters:

• Do you love the new emojis, or do they make you sad or angry?
• What downsides do see for Facebook to expand the options?