Blog Post 3

Emotions have been increasing less and less important in our time, in all realms of social reality. Emotions are now linked to the use of technology (especially through phones) and, secondly, the Internet is now a space in which emotions are expressed but aren’t actually felt by a person. Technology not only arouses “fake emotions” in users and serves but it also is as a channel for the expression of “fake affection.” This in fact, has consequences for the construction of identity of a person. Things such as emojis give you an opportunity to show someone how you feel but the real question is whether or not the person actually feels the same way.

Through social media and texting it is really easy to express your emotions, I know from personal experience. But what I never thought about was whether or not I actually feel that way I’m portraying through the phone or social media. For example, when I’m texting with my friends and they tell a joke or send a meme, I respond with a laughing emoji or I say lmfao, lol, ctfu, I’m crying, I’m hollering, etc. (and its funny because each of those have different intensities of laughter.) When I send one of those it doesn’t actually mean I’m laughing. I just “laughed” to make it known that I recognized their joke. Or another example is when I’m texting my boyfriend. He would say something cute and I’ll just send back the blushing emoji because I cant just say I’m blushing or I’ll send it because I’m not sure what to say back.

Emojis are a good way of expressing emotions but what happens when your face to face with that person? You can’t just respond with “lol” when a joke is told, or if you’re talking to your boyfriend or girlfriend you can’t just ignore what was said and blush. Technology has taken away our social skills and flushed it down the toilet. We’re so used to talking or texting on the phone, that we cant even have a conversation in person without it being awkward. From experience, I’ve never been good at talking to someone face to face. I would hide behind my phone and say anything I want through text without feeling one bit of remorse. However if you asked me to say the same thing I said through text, in person, I most likely would’ve remained with my mouth shut. I’m a very shy person and I am truly convinced that my phone has only made my shyness worse. Communication skills hasn’t just gone away, everyone still needs to work on them so when its time for a job interview we aren’t stuck in our thoughts and wishing interviews were through text messages like I do lol (I did it again😂... and again)

*If you didn't get it I'm saying I laughed at my own joke but I had a straight face while typing it.