Communication is key. This is one of those ideas I think will never change and will always hold true. We communicate every day in a variety of ways such as speaking, signaling, texting, or sending images. After all pictures can be wroth a thousand words, right? Although Communication is a broad topic, I’d like to focus on the communication on social media. Not only is this important but I actually think it’s interesting that having being born in 1997, I feel positive saying I’m seeing  that he evolution in communication in social media unfold and get more interesting. It’s actually quite impressive, but is it too much?

If we are asked about emojis, I think most of us would agree that the first thing that comes to mind are all the emojis that have appeared on our key boards. It seems that after a certain period of time the collection continues to grows and in general this sounds like a good idea. I’m sure many us use emojis wether its use to send to our friends to express reactions or to decorate our Bio’s or even screen names on any other app that allows. I think it’s fair to say that emojis have taken communication a little further in a digital platform. They are basically universally known and are even seen on commercials and listings on sites like craigslist. 

With around 3,053 emojis as of 2019, we have seen it expand by adding several skin tones to reflect that of society and even included a lot of variations of a general idea. For example, Ian Bogost who wrote “Emoji Don’t Mean What They Used To” mentions that a general idea such as a beer has gone through expansion such as now being able to pick a beer mug, two beer mugs clinking, and even cocktails are included. Ian Bogost, expresses the idea that perhaps an expansion to the library isn’t at all convenient and even maybe defeats that purpose of the emoji.

“Pictograms (including ideogrammatic ones) are powerful because they are specific but flexible. The train can represent a light-rail line, a subway, a toy, and so on. A snowman can mean a literal snowman, or a warning that it’s cold out, or even a gripe about the office thermostat. The pleasure, and power, of emoji arises from the ambiguity inherent in pinto-ideographic writing.”

To back up his claim Ian Bogost gives us a brief history of the beginning of the emoji. We learned that the original emoji was created by Telecom NTT Docomo in  1999 for Japanese cellphones. At the time they were simple because of the technology back then but the simplicity also was what made them unique. They were so simple and general that they could serve several purposes to express and idea or emotion. It still benefited communication because there was context through the chat.

Ive come around to the idea of using Emojis, and it’s been real entertaining because to me, it feels like i get my ideas across more. Maybe, it’s because I’m a visual person. I do believe that Ian Bogost has a great point that perhaps the Emojis shouldn’t try to cater every aspect and combination of life. After all its just pictures and such. However, I admit that emojis have also made some of my personal communication experience better and it does help to sometimes have the emoji that fully straight up says what you have to say. Where do you stand on emojis? Do you think they’ve lost their meaning along the way trying to cover all aspects and variations or should they have stayed simple enough to be used in any situation? 

---

Worthy News of the Week.

lhttps://www.cnn.com/2020/11/10/health/pfizer-vaccine-distribution-cold-chain/index.html