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 convey. Who will type ‘I am fine.’ I would rather type :-)”, says 27-year-old Nabajit Barthakur of Guwahati.
A few years ago, texting was the only source to express your views and emotions. Though emojis were there, but people resorted to texting as they were still unaware.

WhatsApp, which is dubbed as the world’s number one chat app, has revolutionized the way people communicate these days. WhatsApp provides a large set of emoticons to convey feelings and several other thoughts which would otherwise need several words to express.
“An Emoticon is worth a thousand words,” says Priyanka Sharma. “Why to write plenty when just a smiley can do great. Emoticons have made conveying emotions easier. You can convey a variety of emotions through emoticons easily. However they have reduced our ability to use words to communicate competently,” she added.
However, Kolkata’s Tathagata Dasgupta feels the other way.
“Emoticons can’t ever replace the richness of the written word. You can express how you’re feeling, but you can’t express HOW you’re feeling. You know what I mean. Emoticons express a range. Words express a feeling. Being happy might have many reasons. But if I say ‘Today I’m happy because I had Biryani’, you know how to respond. Emojis aren’t clear communication.”
Over the past couple of years we've seen new apps like Emoji Free, Emoji ++, SMS Rage Faces, and KeyMoji come to market. There is even ‘emoticon art’ that allows you to customize and create your own cartoon images.

The emoji has become one of the fastest growing forms of communication in history. But those who are worried that its growth could see the death of written language are wrong – emojis are being used to enhance, rather than replace words in our digital communications.
Satabdi Pal, who resides in the UK, feels the same. “Emoticons are lot easier but less expressive. Emoticons are good for reaction but texting helps you build a case as in your current situation what you want to say how you are feeling what you want to do. I would rather say emoticons are good along with text.”
Emoticons and emojis is now not only limited to expressing your emotions on views. The whole social media platforms are now full of jokes using emoticons and emojis.
“Texting is definitely good. But emoticons have helped a lot in expressing our feelings. Words definitely cannot express our feelings in a proper manner, but emoticons help a lot in expressing in a manner we want to say that sentence,” Ankita Paul said adding, “Definitely, emoticons are taking over but it’s no harm as it is helping us to express ourselves in a much better way.”

DID YOU KNOW

1. NUMBER OF EMOJI
There are 2,666 official emoji recognised by the Unicode Consortium, the governing body for character coding, as of May. In 2010, there were just 722 emoji.
 
2. 'WORD' OF THE YEAR 
In 2015, Oxford Dictionaries declared the "Face with Tears of Joy" emoji as its Word of the Year. It was chosen as the "word" that best reflected the ethos, mood and preoccupations that year.
 
3. POPULAR EMOJI 
In 2016, the most popular emoji on Emojipedia, a widely recognized emoji reference website, were:
  • Person Shrugging
  • Face with Tears of Joy
  • Red Heart
4. THE PEACH 
According to Emojipedia, only 7 per cent of people use the peach emoji to refer to the fruit. It is mostly used to describe a butt, or other non-fruit items and situations.
 
5. BEST NEW EMOJI 
The "Eye Roll" emoji was voted Best New Emoji in the year 2016’s World Emoji Awards.
  
6. ON FACEBOOK 
Every day, 60 million emoji are used on Facebook. This excludes the five billion emoji that are used on Facebook Messenger daily.

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