Wellbeing 2.0

Mir Faraz, Year 8

Greetings everyone, my name is Mir Faraz, and I study in Year 8. I’m the Wellbeing Coordinator for my year group. My new column, named Wellbeing 2.0 after much thought, endeavours to decode the quintessential meaning of wellbeing – basically, an out of the box interpretation of wellbeing. Our world is changing at an exponential rate. With new disruptions every day, the very concept of wellbeing undergoes a regular paradigm shift. I aim to delve into the hitherto lesser-talked about wellbeing-related topics. The plan is to keep it interesting, thoughtprovoking, and fun at the same time. Come with me on this journey!

All of us have done it at some point or the other.

Imagine you have just won an award and someone sends you a message saying congratulations or maybe you have a test coming up and someone sends you a message saying, "All the best!" And you reply with a Smiley or a heart emoji. You pick an emoji that vaguely matches your response. Emojis – a Japanese term which translates to "picture and character" – first surfaced in 1998. But it wasn't until major smartphone players like Apple integrated emojis into their operating system, that their use took off. As of now, there are over 3000 different emojis in a fully accessible library, on every device there is.

The emergence of new picture icons - like the half smiling, half crying emoji, or the broken heart –has over the past couple of years added personality to our text message conversations.

An especially heated internet debate regards whether Emojis are a whole language of their own, or not. Generally, linguists agree that Emojis are not a language, but at the same time are crucial to internet conversations. Let’s weigh the pros and cons.

When you interact with people in real life, you probably change your tone as you talk and use hand gestures and facial expressions. So if you are messaging online without the use of Emojis, that is the equivalent of talking with your hands pinned to your sides and speaking in a monotone.

Emojis have been a useful, quick way of clarifying our tone and adding character to our messages. Over the past few years, Emojis have helped add tone and context to otherwise one-dimensional conversations. Emojis get picked up because they are so useful for enriching text with the kinds of things we might use our intonation or facial expressions to convey. Instead of being components of conversation, emojis are becoming the conversation.

Slowly, Emojis are diminishing our interaction skills, and when conversing in the real world without the use of Emojis, you’ll start to go blank, as you won’t be able to find the words you’re looking for because of overusing Emojis online.

Furthermore, the growing use of these icons could potentially lead to further miscommunication. It’s the emoji's ambiguous meaning that could lead to confusion because users can look at an emoji and take different things from it. For example, the emoji that illustrates two hands pressed together . This emoji started in Japan where the symbol represented salutation or gratitude. Other cultures interpret this emoji to symbolize prayer, while millennials often see this symbol belonging to two different people giving each other a high five.

Words are the most powerful tools of communication in the world. They help us forge relationships, bridge gaps, and create a legacy. Words are important, that’s why language and communication classes are incorporated into a school's curriculum to teach students how to use words to tell a story and communicate effectively. If emojis are allowed to overwhelm the usage of words, won’t we just be regressing back to the age of hieroglyphics? All in all, Emojis are a great way to add punch and spice to online conversations, but on the other hand, they must be used moderately, and we shouldn’t rely on Emojis to express our emotions entirely.