Emoticons & social media: fun or nonsense?

In the previous blog you could read about the bunch of people who are already using social media. I explained the purpose of twitter and a lot of people using it the right way. According to Winkwaves and the University of Malaysia something is still missing. They are investigating the possibilities of using ‘emoticons’ on twitter.

They have invented Tweeticon. You can still post short messages, but you can choose an emotion which represents how you are feeling. They have created twenty-two basic emotions. They will appear in words and as an avatar, as you can see in the picture below.



Isn’t this a bit exaggerated you would think? Ofcourse, it is fun to add an emotion, but if you read the posts carefully it has to be clear which emotion overrules? A happy text can easily be understand. However, there are a few advantages of using emoticons. So far, the research has shown that social media can be used for expressing your emotions in words. By defining your emotions, it appears that people are more aware of what they are saying. Before they send the message, they think about the emotion they are feeling. The online communication gets better this way. People who add an emotion to their tweet, think about the opinion of other people. ‘If I say I am sad, what will other people think’? People have the tendency to give a more positive emotion to their message. One would not be associated with negative emotions.

I am not yet convinced of the advantages of using emotions on Twitter, but the research continues. I am curious what the end results will be. What do you think?