Emoticons vs. emotions

Emoticons vs. emotions

The widely used emoticons have their vivid place in our virtual communication and are not going to give their place to anything else. When we switch on the Internet there starts the stream of emoticons on Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, etc.
Who can imagine his/her online communication without them? Our first message to a Facebook friend starts with a smile and ends with the same. But what do we get from it? What emotions do we have in real life while speaking with them via internet? All this emotions provide emoticons instead of us.
The emoticons have a very old history.According to Wikipedia, emoticons have been used since 19-th century. They have been used, firstly, for casual and humorous writing. But the digital proposal of emoticons has been on 19 of September, 1982. The idea belongs to Scott Fahlman of Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
We will remember Scott Fahlman longer, as feelings step by step give their place to signs and we start the process of becoming robots.
Remember your latest message or status on Facebook. I am sure that it contains at least this emoticons. They are everywhere, they smile, they giggle they cry but what do we feel, is not clear yet.
Face-to-face communication behind the mountains
Sometimes people are in need of someone who will sit next to them, and will look in his/her eyes. The society misses face-to-face communication, and you say technical development.
The majority of us do not feel how everything is being changed around us, only several years later we will arouse our heads and will see that there is no one even to talk with. Everyone is sitting in front of his/her computer and doing something. They do not have time to meet in real life, their communication is just through social networks. This is Social Media addiction which is no worse other serious diseases.
The growing disaster
The society is filled with widespread computerization. If once it was possible to sit in a cafe or somewhere else and by accident to get acquainted with people of the same interest, nowadays this kind habit has become vanished by laptops, iPhones, iPads. People gather in one place but do not even notice the existence of each other.
There was such time when we dreamed about being alone;being far from the eye of public, but today this distance between people is too large. I have fears that in the upcoming years the youth will be unable to communicate with real people. The gap between each other day by day becomes deeper.
How to avoid becoming a zombie
If you have decided to change your life and start it from a new list, then you may just start from the Internet. Imagine your life without it at least during the weekend. Call the closest friends, go together somewhere and have fun. While speaking look at each others’ eyes, and compare the smile of your friend with your favorite emoticon. Do you see the difference?
I agree that this is 21-st century and you think about ways to increase your twitter followers more than going countryside.But whatever it is do not forger friends of real life. Let it be 3 of them in real, than 3 hundred of them virtual.
I may sound pragmatic but these are the real feelings which a human being can feel: laughing, crying, singing, reading etc. If you have lacked face-to-face communication as well, if you are afraid of becoming a zombie, who spends the 80 per cent of his/her day on the internet than organize a party and enjoy your weekend with friends of real life.

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