EMOTICONS TAKING OVER REAL EMOTIONS?
They are fun, they are short and they are crisp. You can just add them to any conversation and express yourself fully. Someone sends you an encouraging note and you don't have time to respond with a lengthy answer…so what do you do? You pick an emoji or an emoticon that vaguely matches your response. No one can ignore the fact that emojis and emoticons have replaced long texts and people are way more comfortable using them. Emojis – a Japanese term which translates to ‘picture and character’ – first surfaced in 1998. But it wasn't until major smartphone players like Apple integrated emojis into their operating system that their use took off. The emergence of new picture icons – like a smiley brown poop or the broken heart – over the past couple of years have added personality to our text message conversations. “Emoji(s) get picked up because they are so useful for enriching text with the kinds of things we might use our intonation or facial expressions to conve