Diffusion of Innovations - Emoticons

 How Emojis Became Popular

    Emojis on mobile phones were invented in the year of 1997 but they were not the first emoticon's just the first on a phone that were picture based. This is the year that people started to begin to be pioneers. The emojis were basic and originated on the Japanese mobile phone. It started to be used more and more by Japanese mobile companies because people felt as if they could express emotions without words.

       After it was spread to the U.S. the years between 1997 and 2010 were filled with early adopters. They started to spread due to the fact increasingly emojis were being created and in the year of 2010, Unicode adopted emojis which allowed for more emojis an example being the cat emoji. Then the early majority starts to use it and it spreads everywhere. This is when it is super popular, and people are telling each other all about emojis and how to use them. This is when the late majority of emojis come in. Since everyone is telling their friends and family about how cool and unique, they are, they hop on the trend late. These people are late majority because they are usually the type of people who are not as into technology as others, so it is not as important to them to hop on current trends. Lastly are the laggard's, these people are the ones who do not use emojis. The reasoning can be different for everyone. One reason could be that their phone is not compatible with emojis. Another reason is that the phone could be too old, or they do not even have a phone.                                                                                                                                         

        Personally, I think emojis are more positive than negative because when words are hard to express one can express themself with an emoji. They are also used for fun and are helpful to use at the end of a text, so people do not perceive ones message the wrong way. This new communication technology will continue to grow with added emojis and when more people upgrade their phones to phones that have emoticon capabilities.  

Emojiswired.com

 

Progression of iPod to iPhone EOTO Presentations

    When listening to all the groups present this past Thursday, I learned a lot of new information about the evolution of technology. I realized just how much technology has progressed and become powerful in our everyday life. Specifically, I learned that iPod’s have paved the way to iPhone’s. They have been improved over the years and people wanted to be able to listen to music on the go. Apple incorporated this music feature from the iPod into the iPhone.  

    Nowadays iphone’s are more popular than the iPod touch. On the iPhone there is an iTunes app and music app that represent the same functions as the original iPod. Lastly, the storage on the iPhone is much more and it is now able to hold much more songs than ever imagined since the first iPod was created.  

     Apple.com

Emoticons in the Modern World

    Emoticons are symbols that have progressed over the years and have now become something that almost everyone with a phone uses daily. Emoticons first started out by just using symbols that are already on the keyboard and then further changed into actual images of smiley faces etc. Emojis were created to show a facial expression when it began but now it does that and way more. They have emojis for almost everything like birthday cake, shoes, stop sign and more in various categories. The word emoticon comes from a contraction of the words emotion and icon also known as emotional icon. 

Britannica.com

    Scott Fahlman created the first emoticon of :-) he was a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He wanted his students to use the emoticon to show if their discussion post was to be taken seriously or as a joke if the emoticon was used. 

Pictured: Scott Fahlman

Scott Fahlman 

    Emoticons have continued to grow into everyday life, and they are used so much because of how easy they are to text, and our brains can process symbols faster than texts. Emoticons now go through a word processing program and turn the emoticons into little pictures also known as Emojis. Emojis are everywhere, on text and on all social medias.  

Cons to Emoticons

There are some cons to emoticons though that are usually not talked about. Emoticons are unprofessional and if they are used in a business setting like an email or on a paper the work would not be accepted. The person who used the emoticon in the corporate world will then be viewed as less professional. Another con to emoticons is that they take away social skills. Instead of people expressing how they feel using words, they send emojis that can be taken the wrong way. Some emoticons mean different things to different people. Many people believe that emoticons are for lazy people. 

Interesting Facts About Emoticons

Although, I find that emoticons are remarkably interesting and before spoken language people would draw symbols in caves to communicate. Emoticons are modern day cave symbols. When researching emoticons, I found out that the emoji language is the fastest growing language which shocked me. To continue, there are over 3,000 emojis and there is even a world emoji day. The emoticons today show a lot of diversity and interests which is helpful so everyone can have personalized emoticons.  

    Overall emoticons have made a significant impact on technology and how people communicate with one another. Whether someone likes emojis or not they will have to accept that 92% of online users use emojis every day and over 10 billion emojis are sent each day. More emoticons will be continued to be made every year and will be formed based on new social ideas. I know that I cannot personally remember texting without having emoticons because I was so young when emoticons were not put onto apple keyboards. I personally like emoticons but think that if they are used too much than they can be overwhelming and unprofessional. I will continue to use emoticons as a form of communication and am interested in the future of emoticons.  

Emoji Statistics

Does the Media Censor Antiwar Voices?

        The United States today does not view war as it used to. In the past war was looked at as bad, violent, and hateful towards groups. Today the United States wages war across the world every single day and most Americans are not even aware that it is going on. I find it remarkably interesting to find out that I never see the strong antiwar opinions and voices on the mainstream media. 

        Antiwar voices are censored in the mainstream media because they do not want to propose an ideology that is so strong and one sided. The media is all about money so the more viewers they get, the more money they will make.  

        Another reason I do not think there is news about antiwar voices because it can cause protests and cause people that do not agree to cause riots. The American Conservative and Antiwar are two websites thar are used to show support of strong voices for Antiwar. Both websites I have never heard of before until learning about then from class. The websites are very interesting, and I think everyone should read them if they have a chance. In my opinion the more perspectives you listen, even if you do not agree with them, the more knowledge you will have.  

theamericanconservative

antiwar