The power of the 😀

How many times do you reply to someone with a simple or maybe even a instead of words? It’s easy to see that emojis have taken over since their release in 1998, with the laughing crying face being named the word of the year 2015 by Oxford English Dictionaries – the first time a symbol had been placed on the list.

The enormous use of emojis divides the nation – is it ruining our language skills or is it just enabling us to communicate emotion easily? An emoji can completely change your tone in a conversation…

The food was great

The food was great

“Tone of voice, facial expressions, gestures – these are all vital elements of face-to-face communication, but they’re stripped away in writing. Emoji offer a way of compensating for this,” argues Dr Daria J Kuss, course leader of MSc Cyberpsychology at Nottingham Trent University.

Did you know that the use of emojis can actually spark a similar neurological reaction as a face to face conversation and actually triggers happiness?

According to a new paper in the journal Behaviour and Information Technology, “the use of emoji faces in computer-mediated communication produces neural responses that are similar to those that are observed in face-to-face communication.”

So the next time you’re sending a text, why not add on a cheeky smile – who knows whose day you could make!