Reading Reflection on “The Emoji Have Won the Battle of Words”

As we near the end of the semester, one of the readings that has still stuck out to me is one from the first week we had assigned reading, way back in January. Though the week was filled with readings from famous academic journals, the reading that stuck out the me most was an article from The New York Times. In this article, written by Jessica Bennett, the use of emoji in the common language is discussed. Emojis have become more commonplace in conversation through text and instant messages. Though I see this in conversations with my friends and family on a daily basis, I wasn’t aware of the extent of its use. It was in this article that I first learned that a book written entirely in emoji exists on this planet. Titled Emoji Dick, the classic story of Moby Dick is told using entirely emojis. In fact, this book doesn’t just exist, it exists in the Library of Congress.

In my opinion, this is the unfortunate direction our country is headed. Technology is certainly prevalent in our lives, so much to that point that we are beginning to adopt a language created by technology. Its indicative of the footprint and impact technology has our lives, and its also indicative that we don’t even realize it. It’s intriguing to recognize that language began as symbols in the form of hieroglyphics, and evolved to its current state of letters in form of words. If we are reverting back to old ways, a question is presented: is technology ultimately making us regress?