Once upon a time, we wrote to emote and today we emote to write. The cute smiley faces allow us to bring in some humor and character to the simplicity of the words. They even allow us to be a little rude without sounding rude, so it is no surprise that Emoticons and Emojis are the way we communicate today.
Communication like everything else in the 21st century has evolved and we are all gracefully embracing it. I have too and yet I struggle with the ? I get when I ask my children how they are or I ask my husband how’s his day going? I understand they are busy and I also know this is the norm, so I don’t need to be bothered by this, but maybe because I love words, this trend of using ? to show happiness, or ? ? to express silliness or ? to express love for the work or my post bothers me.
To understand this, I asked my girl gang – “lets talk with words on WA and not emoji’s or GIF’s.”Guess what happened .. yup, all in good humor the group had all the possible GIF’s and emoji’s popping up.
Here’s what I learnt, With every passing day, we are forgetting how to express ourselves in writing. Emoticons make it easier for us to acknowledge a comment, a message and celebrations without having to think about what to write. I decided to not use Emoticons for a day at least, and I found myself struggling too. That is when I understood the power of the tiny yellow face.
I get it that time is of essence and Emoticons save time. I also understand that sometimes words are hard to find and Emoticons make it easy, but here’s the thing, Emoticons are confusing, they are not precise and most importantly they create a distraction from the essence of the message.
Lets take the world we live in today… A post on BLM and how the community is creating a movement can get a ?, maybe this hints that people are bringing out the good in each other and moving forward, it can get a ? to show the sadness for the lives lost, it can also get a simple ? which today is the most generic way of saying, “I don’t know what to say, so I gave it a thumbs up.” Instead if folks took a few seconds to write; angels in action, sad this still happens, or Kudos to all; the words bring out the smiles to the readers and makes the message clear and shows that their work is actually creating an awareness because people are pausing to write.
When we write, we have to actually think, and that is why it’s so hard. Emoticons the work is already done, we just mindlessly pick one and click. It’s no secret that when we write our brain registers better, the neural connections activate more, so why are we moving backwards to the era of communicating with images. Man worked hard to put words to their thoughts and in the name of technology we are just taking it away.
Words are powerful and I love words. I am not a wordsmith, sometimes I too struggle in what to say and how to say it, but for the most part, I find them. Words – they have empowered us, from the freedom fighters to the love couplets of Shakespeare. Words have given us the strength to fight for the world that is just and fair, words have given women the right to vote and work, words have taught us to love another irrespective of their color and most importantly words give us the courage to be who we want to be.
Words allow us to be fearless. Emoticons allow us to be silly.
So today, I ask you to do an experiment with yourself, Write to Emote. Find that adjective to express your emotion, find that verb to show you are having a rough day and yet moving along, find that moment to pause and express yourself. Be original, don’t copy, don’t click.
Write to Emote!