By Dayo Yussuf
With booming digital technology, people around the world increasingly use symbols, images or icons to communicate on social media especially to express emotions.
Some users of emojis in the networks say that they help them a lot in expressing their ideas or thoughts. who says she can't chat without using emojis.
“Emojis are symbols of online conversation. When you send a text message, you don't see the person you are chatting with, so you don't know how he understands you,'' Sharon Machira, an ardent user of emojis, based in Nairobi told TRT Africa.
Sharon says chatting without using emojis is like talking without using body language. It is due to the importance of emojis that July 17 every year is celebrated as World Emoji Day.
Writing skills
Emojis differ in their graphics although their use may vary from one place to another, or from one culture to another.
"A lot of things can get lost in a chat if you don't use emojis. But when you add an emoji I can say aaaah.... I understand what he means,' Sharon adds.
But the same thing praised for emojis can turn out to affect society. Sociologist Dr. Kennedy Ong'aro says that emojis have affected language fluency for the young generation.
"People have immersed themselves in the culture of following shortcuts for everything," says Dr. On'garo.
Diversity
''Language is a means of communication. When you use emojis, you avoid writing words and thus you lose the expertise of writing, which means we will end up with generations that rely on pictures or images to express themselves instead of fluent language.'' Dr. Ong'aro adds.
Internet communication is a phenomenon that transcends all boundaries. A young man chatting in Arusha Tanzania has so many things in common with a young man chatting in Tokyo in Japan or Cairo in Egypt.
So to a large extent, the methods of chatting and the use of technology are similar
But after the use of emojis gained momentum, complaints began to arise that existing emojis are not culturally diverse enough with some critics saying such symbols have not taken a lot of African cultures, for example, into consideration.
"Eee!, Alaa! Aka!?'' You will know someone is surprised, or ''Heheeeee, mmmmmh,'' you will feel ridiculed. But if you're an African, you don't want to be told 'Mscheeeew.'' Then you've offended someone.
But will you explain these words in the chat? That is why some Africans are pushing for emojis with better African appeal.
In 2018, Ivorian artist O'Plerou Grebet launched African Emojis. "My goal is to create Emojis that Africans can relate to," Grebet says on Twitter
Grebet says his intention is to put African Culture on the international stage through emojis.
African emojis
''Africa has an interesting culture and many decorations, which are not shown in other emojis. People think Africa is only problems and it is not like that at all,'' Grebet says.
Now if you look at Gebret's app called 'Zouzoukwa' there are more than 390 emojis that he has created himself, such as African surprises, African laughter, African food and clothing.
But if you talk to social experts, especially of a different generation, you will hear some express their concerns about the use of these emojis.
Dr Ong'aro, who is the head of the faculty of Humanities at Daystar University, Nairobi, says that there are risks of misrepresentation of misunderstanding of emojis and that they limit the creativity of young people in communication.
"For example, if you want to show happiness there is a 'Smiley' emoji, but this is the creation of one person. The danger is that everyone gets attached to it without thinking of more ways to express that feeling. It brings laziness to young people,'' Dr. Ong'aro says.
Social isolation
But the importance of emoji also varies between generations. ''Emojis have created a new language with its own online culture,'' Sharon, who represents the gen Z (young people under 30 years old) says.
''For example the Coffin emoji is taken to mean death or tragedy. But when I'm chatting with my friends and we put the coffin emoji, it means, 'you're killing me with your jokes'' she explains.
The thumb emoji means 'yes' or 'ok'. But we don't know what the thumb will turn out to mean in the next five or ten years. And this is what makes emoji communication uniquely enjoyable,'' she adds.
On his part, Dr. Ong'aro insists that emoji isolates some people in communication. "Because many emojis are used, they have different meanings depending on the culture. Therefore, the message may distort, especially between the young and the elderly,'' he says.
There are currently more than 4000 emojis in use covering different religions, cultures, geographies and ages in the world. With the constant evolution of emojis, more are likely to come and different meanings may emerge.
