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BEIRUT: In ancient times humankind used to translate thoughts into words, but now that’s too old-fashioned. Instead there are emoticons.
Emoji is a compound of the Japanese words “e” (“picture”) and “moji” (“character”); and they are basically pictograms a form of graphic communication that humans have been using to express themselves for many thousands of years.
Apple added the emoji on their OS in 2011 then Android followed, and in 2015 the Oxford English dictionary declared it as the word of the year! Former US President Obama even thanked Japan for the introduction of emoji into our world.
World Emoji Day was recently celebrated (July 17); which happens to be the default date shown on Apple's iCal icon, and Apple did not miss this chance to expand its selection of emoji. Twelve new emoji were previewed (displayed at top) including one to express if your mind is being blown.
In July, Facebook published a set of info-graphic stats, reporting that emoji are being used are over 60 million times daily on FB and appear five billion times on Messenger every day! Mayar Yafoufi, founder of local IT company MindField said, “This is too large a number to ignore, but what is yet to be seen is the effect this concise form of communication will have on modern language and even more, on marketing and brand messaging.”
Apple’s vice president of worldwide corporate communications Katie Cotton told MTV in a previous interview, “There needs to be more diversity in the emoji character set, and we have been working closely with the Unicode Consortium in an effort to update the standard.”
Annahar interviewed iPhone users, some of whom considered these emoticons useless with no impact whatsoever on their digital experience. While others were thrilled and excited to add these new features to their conversations and make their feelings and thoughts more vivid.
