There used to be a time where conversations with our near and dear ones took place only over the phone. It seems forever ago, but I remember the ‘little me’ calling my friends during summer vacations and whiling away an hour or so chatting, joking and laughing. Of course, in the process, we also ended up giving our parents a heart attack when they take a look at the call cost as you know, the unlimited talk time offer was not very popular then. Anyway, that’s a different story.
Nowadays, thanks to all the free messaging apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, Hangouts, etc., all the telephonic chit-chats have now been converted into text messages. That’s all good, but texts do not convey our emotions to the receivers. For example, there was an instance a long while back where I teasingly sent a message to my friend. Or so I thought. My friend misinterpreted the text and got slightly offended. Such misconceptions surely are bound to happen because texts do not have a tone. What to do to avoid all that? Lo and behold! Here, our emoji friends come to the rescue.
Emojis are basically facial expressions and actions. So, the receivers can easily make out whether the text had been set in a curt tone or a joking one and so on. I would definitely say emoticons are my life-savers (or should I say friendship-savers?) as there won’t be any silly fights between my friends over a simple misunderstood message. Also, they somehow add life to the text as they stand out with their vibrant colours.
At the same time, I am totally against conversations that purely consist of emojis. How would a person develop his vocabulary and communication skills by using only emoticons and not words!
In a nutshell, I personally feel that text messages must contain words as well as emojis 😊
Sanjitha, 16, loves to read novels, write, paint, sing, dance and play the guitar. She is an animal lover and admirer of nature and music.