I don’t “like” it

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By: Emily Current

One of Facebook’s features is its “like” button, which is used to express appreciation for a post without actually leaving a comment. Now Facebook is giving us more options with new reactions — a heart, an angry face, a sad face, a smiling face, a laughing face, and a stunned face — introduced in Ireland and Spain.

As it is, people already press the like button complacently. You can see the likes on pictures and other posts accumulating into the hundreds, and then far higher for posts that get repeatedly shared. With the numbers of likes on posts growing so high, these likes become essentially meaningless. People have stopped noticing that their friends liked their picture, and started looking just at the number of likes they’ve received. The introduction of Facebook’s new reactions brings up the question of whether this will be any different. Take for instance the heart button. Realistically it will probably not end up being used much differently than the like button. If people really did care about a post they saw and wanted to express that to the person who made the post, then they would take the time and the effort to actually make a sincere comment about it. Facebook’s heart button will probably just end up being used by people who want to appear to be thoughtful and sincere, but who don’t really have anything they want to express. For the most part, it will probably be used as a gesture, just as likes are now.

The outlook for the “angry face” reaction doesn’t seem much better. Why would anyone actually need an angry face to express themselves on Facebook? Do we really want social media to give us an easy way to publicly show anger? This tool could be very easily misused. The angry face could be used to express an actual justified grievance, but it probably won’t be used in that way. If someone is genuinely angry, they’re not going to show that by clicking an angry face button on Facebook — they will comment. It is more likely that the angry face reaction will end up being used in a passive aggressive manner, with people clicking the button on someone’s post and thinking “there, now they know I’m mad at them” thus avoiding direct confrontation.

Like with the angry face and the heart, the problem with the sad face reaction is that it can’t actually genuinely be used to express the emotion that it’s meant to convey. The act of clicking a button is simply not enough of a gesture to have any meaning. If permanently introduced, the sad face reaction will probably dissolve into another empty expression of empathy.

As for the stunned face, the smiling face, and the laughing face, I suppose nothing bad can really be said about them. But on the other hand, nothing good can really be said about them either. They’re harmless but unnecessary additions that will most likely neither contribute anything to Facebook nor have any detrimental effects. They’re just new add-ons that people might enjoy using, but that aren’t really needed.

The introduction of Facebook’s new set of reactions brings up the question of whether buttons on social media should be a part of our daily interactions. The stunned face, the smiling face, and the laughing face aren’t really problematic, as people can use these reactions without having much of an impact. The heart and sad face highlight the issue of insincere emotions on social media, and the angry face is just asking for trouble. Overall, these new reactions are not an improvement to Facebook. They bring with them new issues to the already complex social media site.

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