Do you think seeing the avatars of the people who "responded" to your comments will make a difference on Facebook?

It has always been possible to see who “likes” a Facebook post. With the addition of the new emoticons, hovering the cursor over the notification expands the list to show who reacted how. This didn’t just roll out, unless perhaps it wasn’t previously available on some mobile version.

Facebook reaction icons are still pretty ambiguous. You can choose Sad or Angry or Hahaha, but you can’t choose “I disagree”, so it’s not really clear what they mean, often. I would assume a Sad reaction might be someone is sad to see the Obamas go and someone less likable installed, unless I knew they were a right-wing bozo. Similarly, Hahaha may mean something is funny for different reasons, or that someone disagrees and is trying to make fun of the post. Angry can be outraged agreement or outraged disagreement, etc.

I imagine they had a team of professionals with focus groups trying to select those emoticons and avoid providing a way to do real click-wars. Otherwise they’d have had “Dislike” a long time ago.

I don’t particularly like the mini-avatar thing. But they do a lot of things that I don’t like, and I’m kind of stuck with it until the people I regularly communicate with decide to change venues.

The alternative is talking to them on the phone, and frak that.

I’m with @Seek on that one. I have one friend who insists on calling me, even though we have text, email and FB pm available. It’s annoying as shit.

@dappled_leaves I know all of that. Those goofy emoticons have been out for months. But I’ve never seen their avatars pictured along with them before.

@Zaku Yeah, I hate that they’re all geared to 12 year olds, too.

@Dutchess_III So, you think users had more anonymity when people could see their names but not whatever picture they use as an avatar? I don’t understand that.

It’s like the difference between talking on the phone and talking face to face. You can see the people. You can see much more easily, and clearly, that you’re alone in a sea of faces.
However it doesn’t appear on all the posts. I don’t know if others see it or just me, in my own posts.

@Dutchess_III Ok, I see what you mean now. For me, it makes no difference. I’m capable of understanding that a name represents a real person. Maybe there are people who need to see a face.

I know you are but bear in mind she’s a Trump supporter!

Haha, noted.

I didn’t know this was implemented in Facebook. The last year I mostly use my phone for Facebook and it doesn’t do it on my phone app. About a month ago I was in Facebook in my laptop and I had forgotten how much more information there is. For the longest time I didn’t use my phone at all for social media, and everything changed in the last couple of years.

Your Q makes me realize I may have no idea what my posts look like on other people’s computers.

I don’t think it’s a big deal to have the avatar show up. It’s Facebook, nothing is a secret in there. Even in closed and secret groups I think of it as one day the information might get out.