*insert emoji*
How many times do you use emojis or emoticons in your daily conversation? After every sentence? Or do you just use them as your only response?
I am guilty of using emoticons way too much in my chats, as I am sure many of you are too. These days we use emoticons along with words wherever appropriate, or whenever we do not wish to respond with words. It is a good method of letting someone know if you are upset or happy or frustrated, without using too many words. It is convenient, to say the least. Almost too convenient I’d say.
It has become a huge hurdle for me to write any of this without using emoticons to support. Every time I write something quirky or funny, I wish to add the naughty tongue poking and winking emoji. Every time I write something a little embarrassing, I wish to put the monkey covering its face emoji. Each situation makes me think of at least one emoticon to support the words. Alas, I just let my words do the trick.
I am not sure how I feel about this almost compulsive need to put an expressive character after every sentence. We have a long history of literary work that has been written, read, and felt without any need for such icons to dictate the emotions. There is a power in words that can compel a person to feel a particular way. But with the advancement of technology and more conversations happening on text, these graphics have taken over the way we converse and emote ourselves to others. Quite contrary to how one would expect text messages and conversations to go.
But I would not fault it much either. Especially since it makes a conversation quite fun and interactive. These days along with emoticons, our chats are dominated by stickers and GIFs. These are also used to convey our feelings to the other party in an entertaining manner. It can never be denied that a big factor that lacks in texts and can create misunderstandings is emotion.
If you are just reading a piece of text, it is likely that you might not understand the flow of the message, or the tone, and end up not getting the real thought behind those words. These errors are being resolved to an extent because of the usage of these tiny little faces, which lets the receiver get a hint of the tone set in the messages.
Seeing both the pros and cons of these emoticons (see what I did there?), I am unable to decide if I like them or not. On one hand, they have made it easier to emote on the text and convey my feelings; but on the other hand, I feel like they have taken away the charm and power of words to some extend, and leave me feeling a little handicapped without them.
Pictures do mean more than a thousand words, and in that respect, these icons are working spot on. Though, even these faces are not completely fool-proof. Emoticons do not come with any manual that clearly identifies an expression, so each person can interpret them as they want. That can be a cause for confusion too.
Thus, it can be said that both emojis and words have their benefits and rooms for errors, so it depends on the users and their preference for how they wish to incorporate them into their messages. And anyway, as long as your thought is being understood well on the other side, who cares how you express them. Right? 😏
- By: The Lazy Soul
