Emoticons and parenthetical narration can help to express the gestures that someone communicating online might want to express. That being said: it’s just not the same.
Without facial expression, physical gesture, or the patience to use full words, telling a story to someone through messaging is not going to have the same texture. A person can type::flailing their arms::, but the image that is created won’t have the same effect as almost being smacked by someone flinging their arms around. The physical comedy or/and dramatic emphasis the gesture was meant to achieve will be diminished by the pause that “narration” creates. Typing “ :0)” isn’t the same as seeing the person smile because you have no idea what kind of smile they are smiling. Is it a smirk or a sheepish grin? Are they beaming, or just putting a good face on it? An emoticon can’t convey that, and generally people texting or typing won’t bother to narrate the facial expressions, or gesticulation of themselves or the people they’re telling the story about.
I’m not saying emoticons are worthless or that using descriptive language to try to convey what was done is pointless, because that’s not true. Both description and smiley-faces help to clarify intent and tone, which is necessary since online communication lacks the nuances that face-to-face, or even telephone conversations can have. All I’m saying is that even though people are trying to incorporate gesture into online communication, a lot gets lost in translation.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment