We have suddenly become a society who is big on how people feel. This has filtered into every aspect of our lives; from the way we send text messages to the way we communicate online. There is rarely a day that goes by that you don’t see an emotions smiley in one text message or another.
We even send smiley emotions in our emails to our friends and coworkers. Whether you are showing MSN emotions smileys or Yahoo! emotions smileys, they are everywhere. And with books like The Astonishing Power of Emotions or Emotions Revealed-Recognizing Faces and Feeling to Improve Communication, it is no wonder we are trying to add a smiley face or frown to our messages.
An emotion is a mental and physiological state associated with a wide variety of feelings, thoughts, and behavior. Emotions are subjective experiences or experienced from an individual point of view. Emotion is often associated with mood, temperament, personality and disposition. The English word emotion is derived from the French word emouvoir.
Emoticons (or emoctions as some call them) is a textual portrayal of a writer’s mood or facial expression. They are often used to alert a responder to the tenor or temper of a statement, and can change and improve interpretation of plain text. We send so much regular text, some times it is just useful to add a smiley face, to let the reader know what we are really feeling.
These emotion icons can be traced back to the nineteenth century and were commonly used in casual and humorous writing. With most Internet Providers, within an email system, they will provide the writer with a list of emotions icons for the writer to use throughout his or her texting or writing.
We have surely become more emotional as cultures intermingle and become more diverse. And now we can show our emotions anytime we want! : )
