Facebook Adds Reactions to Make ‘Liking’ Posts Less Awkward

Remember that time your friend wrote an emotional Facebook post about his recently deceased grandmother … and you “Liked” it? Yeah, that was kind of weird, to say the least.

But Facebook has finally introduced a more elegant solution for you to appropriately acknowledge your friends’ posts without actually having to write something: Reactions.

Reactions are basically animated emojis that you can access by long-pressing the Like button in the Facebook app. You can also use the feature from your desktop by hovering over the Like button with your mouse pointer.

So far, Facebook is offering six Reactions: Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, and Angry. That means you can now express your sympathy with a grieving friend with a weeping emoji instead of a thumbs-up.

All joking aside, it’s a much-needed and welcome addition to the Facebook interface. Not surprisingly, according to the social media giant, reactions to Reactions in test groups has been positive.

And while there will likely be grumbling from some users — complaining, perhaps, about the cluttered interface — in time most of us will no doubt wonder how we ever got by without the ability to add an Angry emoji to a post about Taco Bell’s decision to kill off the Doritos Locos Taco.

Email Daniel at dhowley@yahoo-inc.com; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley or on Google+.