Facebook Adds The Hug Emoji Reaction So People Can Support Each Other While Social Distancing

The new hug reaction looks like a smiling emoji hugging a heart.

Social distancing and social media go hand-in-hand. When you can’t be with friends and family in person, you can share memes and informative articles, chat and find ways to uplift each other up during these uncertain times.

Facebook has added a couple of new “Care” reactions to make it even easier to show your love and support to people you care for and even strangers amid the COVID-19 pandemic — a hug and a pulsating heart.

If you’re using Messenger, you can also toggle the reaction on the message to a vibrating heart too. “This idea of a hug reaction came back consistently as one of the emotions and feelings that were missing from reactions.

There are two new care reactions: one for Facebook posts, and the other to use on Facebook Messenger. The heart-hugging face emoji will join the six existing reactions that appear when you “like” a post. The current reactions include Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad and Angry.