After reading the passage below, answer the questions that follow. Be sure to "submit" your response for each question. You will initially receive full credit for each question, but your grade may change once your instructor reviews your responses. Be sure to check the grade book for your final grade.
The Rich World of Emojis
Punctuation used to be the key to understanding emotion when we had only written words to go by. Adding a question mark (?) or exclamation point (!) communicated your uncertainty or excitement. A period (.) signaled the end of your thought. Punctuation in today’s digital world does not suffice. Putting a period at the end of your text message can be associated with insincerity (Gunraj et al., 2016), and emoticons and emojis are an expected addition to texts, tweets, and posts. Emoticons are textual portrayals of emotions designed to clarify messages in the absence of nonverbal cues [:-), :-(, ;-)] and are fairly small in number. Emojis are Unicode graphic symbols; these seemingly unlimited icons have filled our online world. From the smiley face (😀) to an icon for sarcasm (), emojis enrich our nonverbal communication and help us send messages more rich in meaning in both personal and workplace applications (Skovholt, Grønning, & Kankaanranta, 2014). While tongue and wink emoticons can clarify sarcastic intent, for example (Thompson & Filik, 2016), emojis can communicate far more complexity in mobile communications and social media (Kralj Novak, Movak, Smailovic´, Sluban, & Mozeticˇ, 2015) through color, animation, and complexity. There are emojis for sports, celebrations, personal interests, and religions — often animated.
Emojis are varied and numerous, but the communication importance resides in their usage, not in their existence. Using five hearts instead of one may be seen as exuberance, sincerity, or overkill. And using emojis in professional communication may brand you as very UNprofessional. On the other hand, texting “I love you” without the heart (when you normally include one or more) might be seen as a sign of potential trouble in your relationship. And you might not always see a difference in your social interaction partner, as one study found that smiling versus sad-looking emoji influenced the thinking and feeling of participants, but not their behavior (Weiß, Gutzeit, Rodrigues, Mussel, & Hewig, 2019).