Facebook has made dramatic shifts and upgrades to its Messenger application, aiming to refine the chat experience for its vast community of over a billion users. A standout feature that has been globally introduced is “@mentions,” a feature that escalates the ease and efficiency of interaction within group chats. Similar functionality is already widely employed in WhatsApp, another application under Facebook’s umbrella.
With @mentions, users can specifically target a member in the chat by using the “@” symbol, followed by their name or a nickname. This feature seeks to simplify direct communication within group chats, prompting individual attention amidst an ongoing discourse with multiple participants. It’s a notch above, ensuring your messages no longer get lost in the cluster of group chatter.
Simultaneous with the announcement of @mentions, Facebook also rolled out an attention-grabbing innovation known as News Feed Reactions. An extension of reactions on the standard Facebook platform, these have now been pushed onto Messenger to foster lively, expressive dialogue between chat members.
News Feed Reactions carry familiar icons like “like,” “love,” alongside emoticons representing varying emotions. It’s a dialogue enhancer, allowing you to express precisely how you feel about a message without consuming time to articulate in writing. The reaction appears at the lower corner of the message box, displaying a running tally of the reactions chosen and showcasing member individuation of response when you tap on the emojis.
Facebook Messenger continues to transform and evolve, catering to its broad user base fragmented across multiple demographics. It’s a tool that sits at the intersection of social and business interaction, and with these new features, it seeks to redefine and elevate the digital communication experience to an entirely new scale.
This article was updated in 2025 to reflect modern realities.
Paul Balo is the founder of TechBooky and a highly skilled wireless communications professional with a strong background in cloud computing, offering extensive experience in designing, implementing, and managing wireless communication systems.
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