This Grandma has to admit that when I saw the blurb in the Culture section of the February 16, 2015 Time Magazine, I first had no clue. It had no illustration and said:
“THE DIGITS. 54%. Proportion of emoji-using singles who had sex in 2014, compared with 31% of singles who abstain from emoji use, according to a study from Match.com.”
I first went to the Internet to research what an emoji is.
Smiley faces! Who knew that there were so many! My first friend who used them WAS single for a long time and a male. He taught me how to find them and use them years ago. Beats having to respond to a text otherwise and sure takes care of a quick emotional response.
Emotional response. Maybe that is the connection. Now I wanted to know more.
Under “List of Emotions,” we find Wikipedia teaches about some forms of emojis:This is a list of notable and commonly used emoticons or textual portrayals of a writer’s moods or facial expressions in the form of icons. The Western use of emoticons is quite different from Eastern usage, and Internet forums, such as 2channel, typically show expressions in their own ways. In recent times, graphic representations, both static and animated, have taken the place of traditional emoticons in the form of icons. These are commonly known as emoji although the term kaomoji is more correct.
🙂 happy face
🙁 sad face
:-|| angry face
Now this Grandma understands when I receive 🙂 what it means!
Going further on Wikipedia we find more about emojis:
Emoji Japanese pronunciation: [emodzi]) are the ideograms or smileys used in Japanese electronic messages and webpages, the popular use of which has rapidly spread outside Japan. Originally meaning pictograph, the word emoji literally means “picture” (e) + “character” (moji). The characters are used much like ASCII emoticons or kaomoji, but a wider range is provided, and the icons are standardized and built into the handsets. The first emoji was created in 1998 or 1999 by Shigetaka Kurit.
Time on line had more information, including, if you can believe, “an emoji-to-inter course graph.”
And there is even more information:
“And, food for thought, women who use kiss-related emojis have an easier time achieving orgasms with a familiar partner. That may be because emoji users cared more about finding partners who consider communication a desirable trait.”
“It’s notoriously difficult to read tone in texts and emails, but emojis can bridge the gap. “[Emoji users] want to give their texts more personality,” says Fisher. “Here we have a new technology that absolutely jeopardizes your ability to express your emotion… there is no more subtle inflection of the voice … and so we have created another way to express emotions and that is the emoji.”
“Because it’s not all about that rocket ship/volcano/insert-other-suggestive-emoji here.”
Really! The author, Laura Stampler, continued:
“Emoji users don’t just have more sex, they go on more dates and they are two times more likely to want to get married,” Fisher says. “Sixty-two percent of emoji users want to get married compared to 30% of people who never used an emoji… that’s pretty good.”
The testing was done on 20, 30, and 40 something singles. As with studies on so many things, significant such as medication prescribed to Boomers to the insignificant, emojis we use in texts, we Boomers are just considered “over the hill.”
Should we care?
This Grandma knows other Boomer grandmas who just don’t text at all. They want no part of this communication mechanism. I bet they also leave telephone messages most of the time, thinking people still listen to them rather than check the list of who called to return the call. Is this a message (pun intended)?
Our adult children text. It is easy to connect about a simple thought or question through texting as they are so busy. Come to think of it, I cannot remember using or receiving an emoji from them until recently. Are emojis too suggestive to use between generations?
Our school age grandson who just got his first telephone texts. I must inquire if he uses emojis! Or maybe I do not want to think about that.
My friends and I who do text with each other definitely use emojis. . . often. One Boomer Grandma friend uses emojis more than all the other friends combined. Hmmm. I will definitely view her differently from now on!
Joy,
Mema
🙂
Comments