One of the reasons we feel familiar with icons begins with a simple reason that we can easily understand them, either from a single character using ancient hieroglyphics from ancient Egypt or learning first words from children’s picture books. A hieroglyphic that could use a word instead had to replace its meaning, and it would have been expressed within human visualization.
Hieroglyphics today are the most commonly found emoticons (emotion icon) emoji. Emoji seems to be standard across all countries, but it is slightly different from emoji due to cultural differences between the East and the West. The first difference is that Asian cultures mainly use horizontal and vertical emoticons. The second difference is that Oriental emoticons value eye shapes, and Western emoticons value mouth shapes.
As shown in the example above, in the East, laughter is mainly expressed through an emoticon ^-^ that smiles with eyes, while in the West, it is primarily expressed through a smile : ) in which research in various fields has been conducted. The view, which is accepted as the established theory of academia, is based on the difference in facial structure between Asians and Westerners. Asians have relatively low cheekbones on their faces, so their mouths don’t change much when they smile, while Westerners have relatively high cheekbones that make their mouths smile before their eyes. For this reason, Eastern emoticons tend to value eye shapes, and Western emoticons tend to value mouth shapes, so it is said that Asians read emotions with their eyes and Westerners with their mouths. For example, the most famous animated characters can easily reveal different features.
It is no exaggeration to say that it is an essential element in modern people’s communication regardless of age or sex and that it is a hieroglyphic of the 21st century. However, what is the fundamental reason why emoticons have become indispensable in cyber communication? Perhaps emotions can easily convey complex and subtle feelings that are difficult to express in words to others.
I found this really interesting and had no idea that this was how emoji had evolved in terms of emphasis on mouths versus eyes – but it makes sense and you back it up nicely. There are some awkward phrases though – “In this way, humans are very close to semiotics” – semiotics is the study of signs — so is your intent to say that humans understand the semiotics of emoji for the reasons stated? Or was it something else?
That’s good question! Actually i was gonna add more about semiotics which is symbols, index, and icon but i didn’t. So that phrases is not necessary. Thanks for clarify!