The Emoticons Are Intruding

While reading the prologue from, The Age of Spiritual Machines, I was drawn to a strange but poignant statement. Kurzweil summarizes a paradox by saying, " We like to solve problems, but we don't want them all solved, not too quickly, anyway. We are more attached to the problems than to the solutions." This statement reminded me of the rampant use of emoticons. They are not only on sites such as Myspace and FrontPage but they have somehow managed to creep into office memos, calendars, billboards, and even novels.

At first, they appeared as harmless decoration, but somewhere along the journey they started evolving until they became the mother of all Pac-Man monsters devouring the words in the sentences and paragraphs as if they were nutrients. Who is to say that they aren't? It does seem like they grow bigger and more complicated with every adjective they replace. This is not to say that human emotion is a problem that needs fixing. It does however make some of us look like we are one fry short of a happy meal. Instead of concentrating on the ability to communicate, some of us get tangled up in deciding which emoticon represents our present state of mind. If your communication skills are sharp, the message will flow through intact with tone and emotion.

Human emotion is one "problem" that does not need to be fixed too quickly. We remain attached to it because of its complexity. I don't blame emotions for being stubborn and resistant to change. It's hard to imagine that a smile can be interpreted as semi colons and parentheses. Let's not forget that there are ways that people can smile sarcastically, deviously,sweetly, weakly, confidently, innocently, and yes even blankly. I can see how the popular emoticon can represent maybe that last adverb listed, but even that's a pale copy of a copy.

Leigh Buchanan is a writer for Inc. magazine. She too has become frustrated by the presence of emoticons in her adult life. I agree whole heartedly with her blog entitled: Trapped in Emoticon Hell, which questions the intelligence of individuals who are unable to tune into her mood based on the words she has written. I can add to this the times I have watched others scanning email documents and their eyes are searching for the emoticon, even before they begin to read, as if they need its permission to feel anything at all. Have people forgotten that absence of emotion is perfectly legitimate? There is no reason to dredge up how stereo instructions make you feel. Information contained in a dictionary, for example, doesn't need any help from something as fickle as human emotion. I respect the flatness of definitions that can provide meaning without telling us how to feel about it.

If emoticons can compete with emotion, is it possible that they may be the throw away medium of new media? It's also possible that they might eventually compete with our senses as well. I can envision aromas and perfumes that have no smell, only a series of icons illustrating what it might smell like. When we buy clothing, most of us have a general idea of what different fabrics will feel like to our skin. True, it may require some to manually access that part of their memory that remembers the texture of wool or silk. Retailers want consumers to not only buy their product, but to buy quickly. If they someday decide that it takes shoppers too long to remember what fabrics they like, they could attach an icon to the product, therefore eliminating reliance on memory.