We’ve seen the beta tests going around, but now it’s time for the official announcement from Facebook itself. If you’ve enjoyed the various reaction emojis you could do on the main app, you will now be able to do the same on your conversations in the Messenger. The like or thumbs up is not enough anymore to react to a message, picture, or video so now you have more options. You will also now be able to specifically mention someone to catch their attention in a long thread.
Just like the reactions that are available for Facebook statuses, you will now be able to select from the love, smile, wow, sad, angry, or like emoji. The main difference is that you will also now be able to choose the thumbs down or dislike emoji, which is something that a lot of Facebook users have been requesting for. Sorry, it’s still not available for the main app, but at least now you can express your disapproval or dislike in private. The reactions are available in one-on-one conversations and in group chats as well.
Sometimes when a chat has been going on for so long, it’s hard to catch someone’s attention, especially if that person you need to talk to in the group hasn’t been online on Messenger for a few hours or days. Now you can mention specific persons in a chat simply by typing the @ button and then the username of that person. The message will appear with highlighted text for the others and the person mentioned will receive a notification to show that they were called out in the chat.
For both Reactions and Mentions, you can choose to turn off notifications if you don’t want to be barraged by these pings. The new features have started rolling out globally so if it hasn’t reached you yet, just wait a few more days.
SOURCE: Facebook
