A few years ago I started to review my frequently used emojis to see if any truth or value could be extracted from the ‘data’.
We’ve seen so many changes in recent weeks. Among them might be your collection of frequently used emojis. It’s a great way to survey your overall emotional wellbeing. Probably not scientific, but it’s a disconcerting or hopeful reduction of your visceral reactions to this experience we’re all having. It all depends on how you deal with uncertainty.
Who knows, social scientists might just be studying the fabric of our culture, our psyche, and our determination from these coded symbols. In hindsight it will be so very telling. Right now, it might just look like one avenue for communicating what we still struggle to articulate with words. The gravity of words and punctuation may be more pronounced given the current state of things but the visual portrayal of the poop emoji, the scream, or the face palm never conveyed such depth before now. What’s a person to do with all these new emotions bundled into images now being recruited for describing a global crisis? Here’s a peek at mine. Has your reaction to life in texts been similar?
Even today, I look at these emojis and I wonder if these are really my most frequently felt emotions. Could I benefit from expressing myself through the stages of home-schooling-while-working-grief with more aplomb? Many of these images are ones I’ve recently used. I guess I’m not maximizing the full potential of everything these emojis have to offer. The lettuce and champaign were congratulatory offerings to my sister who was harvesting some serious produce in her new garden. The spa-like items were part of encouragement for a friend in need of some R&R. My emoji lexicon (?) game could stand to be expanded. In a world of uncertainty, I know I will consistently offer emotive texts with images of hearts.
