For Relationships, Are Emojis Enough?

“Hi, I’m Emoji. You know me. I’m the happy face, or frown, people use to express their emotions, attitudes or moods on Facebook, a text, or an email. I’m a whole lot more fun to look at than ‘LOL’ or ‘smh’ or ‘:-).’ I like to consider myself an assistant – I help folks convey feelings when trying to communicate only with words through electronic technology. I also help to save people the trouble of having to interact face to face, eye to eye, and engaging in that bothersome activity called ‘relationships.’”

Thanks, Mr. E, for your cameo appearance today. You’ve certainly become the face of social media. We’ll let you know when we need you. See ya!

How did we ever survive
without emojis - emoticons?

Did you know that only seven percent of all communication is verbal – actual spoken words? That means 93 percent of communication is non-verbal – tone of voice, eye contact, body language, pace of speech, general appearance, and other factors. Trying to effectively communicate electronically can be like trying to hammer a nail with one hand. Not easy. Hence, the emergence of emojis (emoticons) for expressing thoughts and feelings visually. If people can’t see us, how else will they know whether we’re happy or sad, angry or hurting, bored, dead serious – or just kidding?

I’m not opposed to communicating via text, email or social media. Being a communicator, I utilize these resources a lot. They’re useful for reaching out to people far away, and have also helped me reconnect with old friends and former classmates. But electronic communication – even with availability of emojis – has shortcomings. It does little to enhance real-life relationships; in some respects, it can impede relationship-building.

We’ve all seen young people in malls, their eyes fixed on their smartphones, texting – sometimes to people standing next to them! Couples spend romantic evenings in restaurants, staring at their devices rather than conversing or gazing meaningfully into one another’s eyes. (Admittedly, my wife and I have done this on occasion.) On social media, even a shy, reserved person that never speaks up in public can seem the life of the party.

People are finding it harder to make – and maintain – eye contact, one of those ingredients for non-verbal communication cited above. People have become accustomed to looking down. How can one sustain a conversation while constantly checking to see what someone’s posted on Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, or Facebook? An alert for an incoming message can quickly interrupt meaningful personal interaction.

As I’ve said before, it’s not my intent to denigrate electronic communication. It has its place. But God designed us for relationships, real relationships; not ones formed around bits and bytes, symbols and abbreviations. In the first chapter of Genesis, after the Lord created animals, birds, fish, other living creatures, and then mankind, there’s no indication He wrapped up His work by creating the “emoji.”

We see a premium on relationships in the Old Testament, whether it’s Joseph mending fences with his spiteful brothers; Moses prepping Joshua to lead the Israelites; Elijah mentoring Elisha to be his prophetic successor; David and Jonathan, and other examples.

We see this emphasis throughout the New Testament as well. After beginning His earthly ministry, the Scriptures tell us Jesus “appointed twelve that they might be with him and that he might send them out to preach” (Mark 3:14). He enjoyed hanging out with them.

And while providing on-the-job training to His followers for ministering to others, Jesus didn’t send them out alone. “After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go” (Luke 10:1). They didn’t go with iPhones or PDAs.

Maybe the reason Jesus came to earth 2,000 years ago was because when He gave His “sermon on the mount,” His audience wouldn’t be distracted by texting or video games. He had their undivided attention.

The apostle Paul underscored the value of relationships he’d established, writing how important they had become to him: “I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now” (Philippians 1:3-5). Even though he was limited to the written word during his imprisonment, Paul wanted his own followers to understand the devotion to them, something that couldn’t have been conveyed through emojis – even if they had existed back then.

Despite the conveniences of electronic media, there’s no substitute for person-to-person, eye-to-eye, side-by-side communicating. In these challenging days, when our world seems in such turmoil, our need for mutual support and encouragement is perhaps greater than ever. The happy face of a living, breathing someone standing in front of me is always better than one appearing on a computer screen, a text, or a Facebook post.

Proverbs 27:17 gives us this reminder: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” Just as a blade is sharpened only by contact and necessary friction, we require direct, personal contact to become sharpened spiritually. When we need honing and sharpening for life, emojis just won’t do.

Healing Powers of a Happy Heart

These are some of the "emojis" available on Apple's OS 10.2.
Sometimes they're the only smiles we see.

Watching TV, we learn about great new prescription medications available for addressing all manner of aches, pains, symptoms and diseases. Take a pill, or get a shot, and we’ll be good as new (or so it seems). And we often see or read news about major medical advances, reports of researchers on the verge of easing or eradicating various maladies. For strugglers with chronic illnesses, such information offers welcomed hope.

There’s one health alternative, however, that’s typically overlooked: Laughter.

Back in the 1970’s, Norman Cousins, a journalist, author, educator and world peace advocate, brought this “cure” to light. In his book, An Anatomy of an Illness: As Perceived by the Patient, Cousins wrote about a degenerative disease he contracted following a stress-filled trip to the Soviet Union in 1964. Racked with constant pain, he sought medical treatment only to be informed death was imminent.

Cousins, however, reasoned his distress must have been stress-induced, so he prescribed for himself an “antidote” – extremely high doses of vitamin C, accompanied by a continual stream of humorous films and similar “laughing matter.” He discovered 10 minutes of hilarious laughter would provide two hours of pain-free sleep, something even morphine and other pain medications could not do.

His health slowly improved; within six months he was back on his feet. After two years, he resumed work full-time as an editor of the Saturday Review. Cousins’ amazing recovery baffled scientists, but he maintained the key was being able to laugh his way to health.

As this emoji might indicate,
sometimes we need to laugh
to keep from crying.

I thought about this while pondering our society, which is ailing in so many ways. Everyone seems angry, easily offended, and up in arms about practically anything they can imagine. Smiles, much less laughter, seem in short supply. We have emojis to represent various feelings, but they’re a poor substitute.

Maybe if we intentionally tried laughing, resolving to do it often, we – and society – would become a lot healthier. As a newspaper colleague of mine used to say years ago, “Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from crying.”

Perhaps that’s why I enjoy my status as a perpetrator of puns. Maybe the humor isn’t particularly sophisticated, but if it elicits a laugh, a chuckle, even a smile, it’s served its purpose.

Cousins wasn’t the first to discover the healing powers of humor, of cultivating a happy heart. Far from it. The Bible’s book of Proverbs repeatedly speaks of the benefits of an high-spirited heart:

“A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit” (Proverbs 15:13).

“All the days of the oppressed are wretched, but the cheerful heart has a continual feast” (Proverbs 15:15).

“A cheerful look brings joy to the heart, and good news gives health to the bones” (Proverbs 15:30).

“Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones” ((Proverbs 16:24).

“A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones” (Proverbs 17:22).

“The strong spirit of a man will sustain him in bodily pain or trouble, but a weak and broken spirit who can raise up or bear?” (Proverbs 18:14, Amplified).

Such observations and admonitions aren’t limited to the Old Testament. In fact, one of the shortest verses in the Bible makes this simple declaration: “Rejoice always” (1 Thessalonians 5:16). And if our hope and confidence come from the Lord alone, rejoicing isn’t an unreasonable expectation.

Several books have been written called Happiness Is a Choice. Indeed, it is. We can let the world manipulate our emotions and moods, or we can focus on things that make us smile, laugh – and even rejoice – giving us a happy heart. And with cheerful looks, pleasant words, and even silly jokes, we can help others to do the same!