This past Sunday was World Emoji Day. There was a writing prompt on the Daily Drafts & Dialogues blog too, Emojis, in case you missed it. And all this has me wondering how texting has changed the way we write in the 2020s, especially when they’re frequently filled with things like emojis and gifs.
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For the last few days, I’ve seen a few hashtags online calling for people, especially women, in the United States to denounce what the Fourth of July represents. They’ve been urging people to refrain from celebrating the Fourth this year. At first, I thought this was incredibly unpatriotic. It made me sick to my stomach and a little angry if I’m being honest. In the end, however, my drive to understand what this campaign to denounce the Fourth of July was all about won out. Here’s a brief overview of what I uncovered. And questions for you to consider, as well. Be sure to read the post to the very end. You might be surprised.
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Our society runs on caffeine and adrenaline and speed and immediate action– to the point where those who are more intentional and deliberate (or try to be) are often ridiculed. And having machines and algorithms and devices process information (especially language) for us has only exacerbated the problem of making us all busy bodies who do things, a lot of things, quickly… but not necessarily very well or with a long-term human-oriented view. Most people in our society don’t think critically about what they do anymore. I believe this problem has to do with the fact that intentional reading and processing of language doesn’t happen nearly as often as it should anymore. And I believe that reading everything slower can improve your critical thinking skills. In fact, I don’t think it’s possible to have critical thinking skills if you aren’t intentionally processing language when you come across it.
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