I like to say it’s because I want to know what all sides of any debate are, but in reality it’s probably more to do with the sick pleasure I get from hate-reading people’s messed up opinions. I especially do this when the news story I’m looking at is behind one of those pesky paywalls. I don’t know if this is something other people do, or if it’s just me, but when I see news articles on Facebook, it’s pretty common for me to just read the headline and then scroll through the comments, without reading the article at all. This is because Facebook puts the comment with the most amount of reactions at the top, even if that comment was written by a lonely kid with a fake account who has just cracked his fourth Red Bull for the morning and loves nothing more than to get a rise out of people. In a post-reaction world, these comments are often at the top of the feed. It’s true that before the ‘anger’ reaction, comments on news sites and Facebook links were doing a fairly good job of that anyway, but at least before the ‘react’ button, inflammatory comments and trolls were lost in the crowd. The ‘anger’ reaction on Facebook has, in my opinion, done nothing but exacerbate political and social divisions and drive us further apart. One reaction does exactly the opposite, and it’s not ‘wow’ (seriously, such a pointless addition). These reactions help to bring us together with people we don’t even know and improve our experience of social media. When I uploaded a new sexy selfie, my followers could show their devotion with a ‘love’ reaction.

When we came across some truly dank memes, our joy could be displayed with a ‘haha’ reaction.

It felt like the right move no longer did we have to ‘like’ news stories about natural disasters - instead we could express empathy with a ‘sad’ reaction. Now we were able to express a range of emotions love, laughter, sadness, instead of a mere ‘like’. One relatively recent addition to Facebook is adding fuel to the fire the ‘anger’ reaction.Įarly in 2016, Facebook introduced the ‘react’ button, and Facebook users rejoiced. While there are many positive aspects to social media, it’s increasingly obvious that this form of communication is contributing to the growing political divisions in western democracies all over the world. It’s 2018 and whether we like it or not, Facebook has become one of the main platforms for public discourse in our society. Why we should stop using the ‘anger’ reaction on Facebook

Haha react love react red button meme