Apple’s new video reactions are making therapy incredibly awkward

SimplePractice, a company that offers a telehealth platform, is warning patients about Apple’s new video reactions feature that could allow people to inadvertently add heart emojis or virtual fireworks during a telehealth video call. Strange.

As it is shown in a Mastodon post by Matt Haughey (who says he had a friend who saw fireworks on a therapy call after giving a thumbs up in response to a question from his therapist) SimplePractice notifies patients that Apple devices “may display emojis during video calls” and that SimplePractice has no control over the settings. SimplePractice also analyzes reactions. in a frequently asked question and has instructions on how to turn off reactions on both iOS and macOS.

Video reactions are a great new feature for iOS 17 and macOS Sonoma, which Apple officially launched in September. When reactions are enabled (and they are by default), you can use hand gestures to make certain emoji and animations appear. Making a heart shape adds hearts, for example, while two thumbs up activates virtual fireworks. There are eight possible reactions that you can activate with your hands.

Reactions are, in theory, a useful way to add something extra to a video call. But during certain situations (such as a video therapy session or a major litigation call), you probably don’t want to see those reactions at all. All of the reactions use relatively common hand gestures (things like a single thumbs up, a thumbs down, and two peace signs also elicit different reactions), so it’s easy to see how people can trigger reactions by accident. . And since reactions are enabled by default, people can end up triggering them without knowing it was possible to do so.

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

If you want to turn off gesture-based reactions, here’s how to do it. On iOS, open the FaceTime app, access the control center (On iPhones with Face ID, you can access it by swiping down from the top right corner, while on iPhones with Touch ID, you can access it by swiping up from the bottom of the screen.) Tap the “Effects” option. Video” in Control Center, then tap “Reactions.” In macOS Sonoma, open the FaceTime app, click the FaceTime icon in the menu bar, and then click “Reactions.”