The Emoticon

Enter the Emoticon :-)

When having face to face conversations, it is very easy to see how a person is feeling by simply looking at their facial expressions. But how did people do this years ago when face-to-face conversations were not always ideal?

The first text message was sent in the year 1992 by Neil Papworth. Text-based messages were an easy way to communicate immediately between people but it lacked the intonation that we use in face-to-face conversations. The ultimate solution to this problem was the Emoticon.

The emoticon was invented September, 19th 1982 by Carnegie Mellon University's Professor Dr. Scott Fahlman -- a smily face :-).

Emoticon = Emotional Icon... this was a way to show emotions so the person on the receiving end could tell the difference between jokes vs. serious posts and understand emotion. It was an easy way to clarify tone in messages.

This emoticon spread widely and students began to use them in e-mails, they appeared on online forums and eventually made their way to text messaging. Since the emoticon, we have progressed and now have what we know as Emojis. Today, 6 Billion emoticons are sent daily.

Emojis are a visual representation of an emotion, object or a symbol. These do not use keyboard characters but are more like an image with a cartoonish face. These faces can range from grumpy to sleepy and even depict an image of the food you are cooking for dinner! There is an emoji for every type of emotion you are feeling.

Enterprise communications even have these images to be used across all technology - Skype, Facebook, Twitter etc. Personally, I use an emoji on every social media platform every single day. They make conversations a bit more playful. I tend to avoid them during serious conversations or in a professional environment.

Apple has an even more updated version of Emojis, where you can create a comic- like figure that has features like your own. This new Bitmoji is your own personal emoji where you can create an expressive cartoon character where you can choose from a number of features to make it yourself.

From 1982 to the current, the idea of showing emotions on online platforms have progressed greatly.