important topic a topic that could
literally make or break your ability to
communicate effectively in the 21st
century
what is that emoji now some of you might
be feeling like this or like that but
this is a topic that I’m going to
convince you emojis are perhaps the most
significant advancement in human
communications as we know it but first
let’s take a look back at the evolution
of human communications of course there
was verbal language that developed long
before we could document it but then
came the first revolution the invention
of the pictograph now the pictograph
marked the beginning of written language
but because these writings were in stone
they were in mobile so that led to the
second revolution the invention of the
printing press and paper and this was
great because we could now transport a
message from one place to the next
without actually being there but then
came the third revolution the invention
of computer mediated communications are
what some of you might call the
assassination of American literacy as we
know it but this was incredible because
for the first time we could communicate
with anyone virtually anywhere just by
accessing a computer or a phone or
mobile device however there was one
problem with this latest revolution it
was the first one that was actually
replacing face-to-face communications
and that would be okay except
face-to-face communications has always
been emotional and computer mediated
communications is not now I’m sure
you’re saying well great but like we all
know what effective communication is
right it’s not just what you say but
right because it takes more than just
words and information for us to develop
and maintain relationships
there’s a well-known and often cited
psychologist by the name of Albert
Mehrabian who did a fabulous study huge
study everyone loved it big Lee and he
discovered that only 7% of effective
communication is verbal meaning the
words that we’re saying and 38% is vocal
meaning our tone of voice and how we say
what we say and 55% is nonverbal meaning
just our body language so that means
when we’re texting literally 93% of our
communicative skills are negated now I’m
sure some of the significant others out
there saying great let’s just keep it
this way but this is actually a big
problem I’m going to take a quick poll
how many of you would say that you send
more text messages than you do making
phone calls if you need to communicate
something right because this is the
world that we now live in and according
to a 2014 Gallup poll text messages now
exceed phone conversations as a dominant
form of communication for Americans
under the age of 50 reaching nearly 60%
for some age groups of all the
communicating that we’re doing we’re
doing over some form of texts now I’m
sure we can all relate to the difficulty
of communicating emotions over text
messages or simply being misunderstood
or getting that email reply that really
wasn’t warranted based on the intent of
your original message so what has
technology done to respond to this need
to restore social intimacy and emotions
back to our everyday communications now
I’m sure we’re all used to
you know FaceTime and Google Hangouts
right and Skype and this allows us to
see each other when we’re talking on the
phone but just like I said phone
conversations are quickly going out of
style so there’s that
then we’ve got Apple’s digital touch
features and this is cool because we can
send our heart rate or doodle a message
or even tap tap someone on the wrist
when they have an alpha watch now that
restores some
social intimacy right but then we also
have apples I a message effects and
these are super cool because you can
send balloons and confetti and even slam
down a text message on someone’s
iMessage interface that’s my favorite
but if you haven’t accessed these please
do they’re worth like 10 cool points
every time you send one but while all of
these are great and they are perhaps the
most significant advancement in
restoring social intimacy back to our
everyday communications is emoji now
where did emoji come from I’m glad you
asked an employee at a Japanese telecom
company back in the 1990’s came up with
a brilliant idea to add simplistic
cartoon images to their paging interface
and this was a way that they could
compete in the market and attract more
teenagers well this was so successful
that not only did the Japanese telecom
adopt it but when Apple came out with
the first iPhone back in 2007 they
decided to incorporate a hidden keyboard
for emoji just to break into the
Japanese market now how many of you can
remember having to download that
Japanese language app right just to
unlock your emoji keyboard anybody
remember that
well that’s because Apple never really
intended for us to find it but of course
we did and emoji was well on his way to
becoming the fastest growing language in
history now by 2015
74% of Americans were using emojis
sending an average of 96 emojis and
stickers per day now believe it or not
this cultural and social shift in the
way that we communicate and this new use
of emoji has been the subject of real
scientific research because somebody has
some time on their hands clearly just
kidding I’m one of those people and and
what has been found is that not only are
emojis becoming a part of our everyday
vernacular they’re starting to fill the
gap left by facial expressions so
there’s a study that was published in
the journal of social neuroscience and
dr. Owen Church found that when we look
at a smiley face on a screen
the same parts of our brain are
activated is when we look at a real
human face not only that humans are now
having facial mimicry responses to emoji
like you see up here and lastly he found
that our mood now
changes to match the emotion of an emoji
that we’re sending or receiving I think
about that that means that our brains
are now processing emoji as emotional
communication and not words and what’s
even more interesting is that we were
not born with digital communication
skills right that means that emoji is
actually creating a new brain pattern
within us and doing the same thing that
tone of voice and gestures do in our
face-to-face communications anybody else
feel like this I mean I was going to do
a mic drop right there but I have this
so I can’t but this is really
interesting so what’s next in this
evolution of human communication in this
new language of emoji well diversity and
inclusion of course because it’s not
enough that we can communicate emotions
like happy and sad and mad right we need
to be able to communicate those emotions
with the same social and cultural
references that we have available to us
in our day to day communications so for
example your friend texts you says oh my
god I got the job I’m so excited for
some people your response might look
like this yes right and for others it
might be this right but see I grew up in
the church culture a little animated so
and that’s why my co-founders and I
created bode cons because we wanted to
restore that social intimacy and that
that fun personality back to our
everyday communications all right here’s
another example say you’re saying
goodbye to your colleagues you’re going
off on to a new adventure and you’re
leaving your job depending on your
experience you might want to send
something like this right for others you
might feel this way that might help but
when I love my job back in October to go
and pursue entrepreneurship full-time I
that’s because I had one opportunity to
leave a lasting impression and to show
how I felt to the colleagues that I
would miss so much so believe it or not
guys we really have stumbled upon a
whole new way to communicate in the
digital age and while emojis and text
messaging will never replace the old way
these little surrogate faces are going
to help us to communicate more
effectively so what is all of this about
and why am I even here talking about it
like what’s the takeaway the next time
you see an emoji I don’t want you to
dismiss it as some infantile cartoon I
want you to embrace the emoji I want you
to become the emoji I want you to learn
to express yourself through the emoji
because they really are the language of
the future thank you
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you [Music]