Now, I do enjoy an emoji & algorithms update my 'frequently used' as my favourites change 🤷🏼‍♀️💁🙋☺️👍🏻#mscedc what's your favourite?

— Linzi McLagan (@LinziMclagan) March 9, 2017

 

I am an expressive person and there are times where words over social media or technology driven text just do not give a conversation justice because of the lack of social cues (Kozinets, 2010). I am a frequent emojicon emoticon user, sometimes I reply with a simple emojicon emoticon to demonstrate my reaction than provide any text at all which my peer Eli pointed out. I like to explore the new emojicons emoticons whenever there is an update but algorithms influence my use of emojicons emoticons due to the frequently used selection appearing first, so, I get stuck in a rut. I usually pick the ones that pop up through convenience but it means that I am forever using the same emojicons emoticons. Over the week, I varied my activity and caused havoc on my frequently used! I even sent a shout out to my other #mscedc peers. The predication of the algorithm means that I am limiting my social expression by repeating and displaying the same emoticons emoticons over and over again. The algorithm arrowing down and closing off choice limits my experience (Beer,2016). Could the external influence of the emojicons emoticons affect my actual emotions or how I project them???

References:

Beer, D. (2016). The social power of algorithms. Information, Communication & Society, 20(1), 1-13. DOI: 10.1080/1369118x.2016.1216147

Kozinets, R. V. (2010) Chapter 2 ‘Understanding Culture Online’, Netnography: doing ethnographic research online. London: Sage. pp. 21-40.

After feedback from my tutor, I realise that I made up the word ’emojicon’ and it is in fact EMOTICON!!