The Emoticon

Screen capture of my favourite emoticon:

Shelley Du, Capture 1. Created April 11, 2012.

I recently came across a news article about a woman that committed suicide while on Facebook. The article inspired me to write about emotions in social media and how it has changed communication.

Text itself is ambiguous. A word or a sentence can have multiple meanings depending on how it's said. Altered volume, tone, or pitch can completely change the way a message is conveyed. For example, let's look at the sentence "You're funny." If we look at the sentence alone, this sentence can literally mean that the person is funny. It could also mean that the person really isn't funny and should stop, depending on how it's read. To deal with the ambiguity, emoticons were introduced.

Emoticons, made from the words emotions + icon, are facial expressions made with text symbols. It is usually used to show the mood and tone of the speaker and is widely used in instant messaging (iM), short messaging service (SMS), emails, Facebook, Twitter or any situation where it is appropriate to use letters and symbols. We use emoticons to soften messages, lighten conversations or just to end on a positive note. I can relate to this. When a friend sends me a message asking me to do something without an emoticon, I feel like they’re demanding for me to do something, but when the messages comes with an emoticon, I read it as they’re asking for a favour.

Using the same example as before, let’s look at the sentence “You’re funny” but this time spiced up with an emoticon:

“You’re funny :)“ – That made my day

“You’re funny ;)“ – Nice joke there!
“You’re funny XD“ – I’m rolling on the floor laughing.
“You’re funny 8-)” – You’re funny, in a nerdy way
“You’re funny @_@” – I’m confused with your humor
“You’re funny >_<” – Irritated by your humor
“You’re funny >_>” – That was funny?
“You’re funny -_- “ – Not impressed by your humor
“You’re funny 0_0” – Disturbed by your humor

It could be said that the use of emoticons have allowed us to show our mood/tone in our messages. But the overuse of emoticons have made it difficult to explain our emotions in words. The convenience of typing a couple extra symbols after a message, have allowed people to hide their emotions through the use of the emoticons. Some people use it so often that it’s plainly just a habit. Others may use it to deceive others of their emotions, while a couple people out there actually use emoticons to express how they truly feel.

Human beings are complex and so are our emotions. Emoticons are simple to use but does it really truly describe what we feel inside? Emoticons could also be ambiguous. Different faces may have different meanings to different people. What one may read as a friendly expression, another can read as rude. For this reason, emoticons should be used with discretion, especially in a professional setting. Whether a sender or a receiver of emoticons, don't read too deeply into it because really, it is JUST a symbol. Drawing back to the article that I read, if her friends were able to detect her mood and the severity of the situation, would they have called the police instead of trying to message her to stop? I guess that is an answer we’ll never figure out. On the bright side, check out Susan's blog as she explores mother-daughter relationships.