Emoticons are a phenomenon I have never quite been able to stomach. Nothing bodes worse for a potential friendship with me than a smiley face with a wink or a disjointed heart that has mathematical significance. It usually goes something like this: I am making plans with someone via text message. We decide to meet in Davis at 7. I say that this sounds good to me, and this is the reply I get:
;P
What?!
I just don't get it. Why is that an acceptable response to or expression of anything? People rarely stick their tongues out in real life, so why anyone would delegate that facial task to a random capital letter is a mystery to me. Furthermore, it is really hard to wink and stick your tongue out simultaneously. Have you ever seen someone do that? I made all my housemates try it. It looks really stupid.
I'm not sure how I missed the boat on this surprisingly enduring trend; AIM's heyday coincided exactly with my angsty preteen years (perhaps this is no coincidence), but still, sending me any kind of punctuation that is supposed to look like a face is the kiss of death if we are going to have even a semblance of a lasting relationship. Perhaps it's because I graduated high school a cell phone virgin and arrived at Tufts sans texting capabilities on my new bedazzled Razr. All of sudden, my new college buddies were bombarding me with texts filled with happy faces and sad faces and the enigmatic face with an "X" for a mouth, the meaning of which I will never understand. Everyone I have asked is dead set on a different connotation: from kissing to vomiting to having just been poisoned (that one's mine) to a close mouthed expression of "there are no words." After a month's worth of overage charges, I gave in and got a texting plan, but part of me has regretted it ever since.
It's not just the emoticons. Don't get me wrong: I hate them with a fiery passion. When it comes to writing, I am a punctuation whore, and I hate to see my favorite technical devices debased by being forced to contribute to a world of virtual flirting and excessive bubbliness. This issue alone has ended relationships before they have begun, but there is also something inherent in texting that bothers me, semi-colon or not.
Texting is easy, and I think for most types of human interactions, it is too easy. It makes sense for a quick transfer of information, a one-liner, a reminder or a prelude to an actual conversation. Outside of these, I find texting to be a totally inappropriate means of communication when it comes to real life. It takes away so many elements that make a conversation great, or at least real: subtlety, irony, sarcasm... emotion. The latter is why, I'm sure, emoticons came to be in the first place. The problem is that in our world, texting, like being drunk, also takes away the accountability factor. You can send words that are coy or abrasive or passive aggressive or otherwise completely loaded, and you don't even have to look the person they are directed at in the face. You never have to address them again if you don't want to, because while they may be saved on a SIM card somewhere out there, they are impersonal and removed from you, having gone right from your brain into existence, bypassing your voice and your mouth completely. Emoticons might be meant (and used) as a literal representation for an actual smile, but really? Isn't a real smile better?
This might be news to some, but those very same devices that you use to text people can also be used to call them. And talk to them, with your voice, which could then be used to find a way to see each other for real, in person. So if you haven't seen a friend in a while, or have something hard to tell your mom or think you like someone, or know you do, don't use T9 to express that, and pleeeeease don't use parentheses. Use your words, but use them coming out of your mouth instead of your fingers. ;)
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Jessie Borkan is a senior majoring in psychology. She can be reached at Jessie.Borkan@tufts.edu.
