Say your friend posts a Facebook status about being depressed or upset about something, like a bad breakup or a dead pet, and you want to let them know that you feel for them without going through the awkward comment-and-response ritual. In other circumstances, you’d hit the Like button, but we both know that it isn’t really the best way to respond to sad statuses.
In its purest sense, hitting the Like button means you ‘like’ what the person is saying—say, you find it funny, inspiring, agreeable or just gosh-darn delightful. Such sentiments are implied if you hit the Like button on someone’s Facebook post, which is why liking a sad status isn’t such a good idea. Sure, you know you mean well. But maybe your friend thinks otherwise.
To get rid of all the awkwardness and the miscommunication, Facebook is reportedly working on a clever alternative: the Sympathize button.
The Sympathize button originated at a Facebook hackathon event. Dan Muriello, a software engineer at Facebook, told The Telegraph that the feature will appear if the user tags a status with certain emotions. Muriello said that it is still in the works and did not provide a timeline for it.
While the simple and obvious solution to show your sympathetic feelings towards bad-news posts is to type “I’m sorry” or “There, there, buddy”, one has to remember that so much is going on in Facebook (and the entire internet for that matter) that sometimes, people only have the time and patience for a single click of a button. Plus, it’s a lot less awkward.
Source: The Telegraph