The appeal of emoji: They don't say anything

The appeal of emoji: They don't say anything
- June 14, 2013
- Mizuko “Mimi” Ito, anthropology and informatics professor and current John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Chair in Digital Media and Learning, is quoted in the Huffington Post June 14, 2013
From the Huffington Post:
A few years ago, I staged an emoticon intervention with my father. I'd realized with
horror that he had been sprinkling smiley faces into the messages he sent to his friends,
relatives and even business acquaintances, so I sat him down for a stern conversation
about the crippling un-coolness that the habit conveyed. No one, I told him, should
be caught dead using emoji…Mimi Ito, a cultural anthropologist researching technology
use at the University of California, Irvine, explains that while email and desktop
correspondence tends to be focused on completing a set task, a great deal of mobile
communication -- given how frequently we have our hands on our phones — is about sharing
an "ambient state of being." People tend to text a great deal with just two to three
people they know well, but they simultaneously seek to maintain a "virtual co-presence"
with nearly a dozen acquaintances.
For the full story, please visit http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bianca-bosker/emoji-appeal_b_3437522.html.
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