Skip to content
Strona główna » How do emoticons help in communication?

How do emoticons help in communication?

How do emoticons help in communication

How do emoticons help in communication? A few sentences of my commentary in one of the popular science articles.

One of my former MA students asked me for a few sentences of commentary on the subject of emoticons. Her text appeared on the portal of Radio Złote Przeboje (Golden Hits), where she works. She asked me three questions: How important an element of communication among young people are emoticons? Are they a big problem in intergenerational communication? If so, how can this problem be solved? A few sentences of my answer.

Image by freepik

Emoticons in the lives of young people

Emoticons are not so much an important part of young people’s communication as a commonplace. Because it is their world of communication. Abbreviated, and at the same time containing maximum information about, among other things, their emotional state. Emoticons took their start from a certain economy of communication. When text messages started, we were careful not to exceed a certain limit of characters, otherwise it would cost us to send another one. So, an abbreviated language was invented, which then became widespread on the Internet. For young people, it is a sure indicator of their generation and communication style. Zetas are economical, avoid unnecessary words, express emotions boldly, and want to quickly move on to other communications.

How to understand today’s youth? A guide for “dinosaurs”

Emoticons in intergenerational communication

By the elderly this language is sometimes incomprehensible. For me as a representative of Generation X as well. But this is due more to choice than reluctance. I limit myself to 🙂 Other emotional states I try to express in Polish. Sometimes it can be poetry. This is also a form of striving to economize language. I’m a little concerned that emoticons are a return to Paleolithic drawings from Lascaux. They impoverish language. But communication is all about exchanging values, ideas and emotions. By the same token – if we know what we want to communicate to someone, especially a loved one – words will be found in any language such as English. Also, emoticons in such a perspective are no obstacle, if we remember that this is only a slice of the possibilities that language gives us. And above all, if we are aware of ourselves and our message.

How do emoticons help in communication? Practical advice for “elders”

First of all, let’s not be afraid of emoticons. It is worth knowing their set in order to understand the young. But let’s also not try as “old” to imitate the young in communication. They expect us to be authentic. I for one would love to talk about writing handwritten letters to friends and loves from my student days. It seems that creating such young-old models in exploring our own worlds of communication and media is just the basic advice. We can learn a lot from each other and, above all, discover together what communication is for.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. View more
Cookies settings
Accept
Privacy & Cookie policy
Privacy & Cookies policy
Cookie name Active
 

Who I am

My website address is: https://mediastudies.pl.

Comments

When visitors leave comments on my site, I collect the data shown in the comments form, as well as the visitor’s IP address and browser user agent string to help with spam detection. An anonymized string created from my email address (also called a hash) may be provided to the Gravatar service to see if I am using it. The Gravatar service privacy policy is available here: https://automattic.com/privacy/. After my comment is approved, my profile picture will be visible to the public in the context of my comment.

Media

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Cookies

If you leave a comment on my site you may opt-in to saving your name, email address and website in cookies. These are for your convenience so that you do not have to fill in your details again when you leave another comment. These cookies will last for one year. If you visit my login page, I will set a temporary cookie to determine if your browser accepts cookies. This cookie contains no personal data and is discarded when you close your browser. When you log in, I will also set up several cookies to save your login information and your screen display choices. Login cookies last for two days, and screen options cookies last for a year. If you select ‘Remember Me’, your login will persist for two weeks. If you log out of your account, the login cookies will be removed. If you edit or publish an article, an additional cookie will be saved in your browser. This cookie includes no personal data and simply indicates the post ID of the article you just edited. It expires after 1 day.

Embedded content from other websites

Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website. These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Who I share your data with

If you request a password reset, your IP address will be included in the reset email.

How long I retain your data

If you leave a comment, the comment and its metadata are retained indefinitely. This is so we can recognize and approve any follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in a moderation queue. For users that register on my website (if any), I also store the personal information they provide in their user profile. All users can see, edit, or delete their personal information at any time (except they cannot change their username). Website administrators can also see and edit that information.

What rights you have over your data

If you have an account on this site, or have left comments, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data I hold about you, including any data you have provided to me. You can also request that I erase any personal data we hold about you. This does not include any data I am obliged to keep for administrative, legal, or security purposes.

Where your data is sent

Visitor comments may be checked through an automated spam detection service.
 
Save settings
Cookies settings