In 2015 Oxford Dictionaries declared an emoji to be the word of the year. You can’t see, but I’m wearing a smiley face. From high fives and thumbs up to the birds and the bees, there is an emoji for just about every emotion – including dozens of ways to express happiness.
Happiness comes in many different shapes and sizes, and numerous research studies link being happy to a better state of health and wellbeing.
Sometimes happiness is the relief and satisfaction we get when we finish cleaning the kitchen. Sometimes, it’s watching a child or pet do something that amuses us. Or sometimes it’s obvious like going to a party. But, ultimately, happiness is around us and it’s up to us to recognise it. And with emoji’s, we can express our feeling of joy in a whole new way.
“Studies reveal that emoticons can either temper or boost the emotional punch of what we write, suggesting they’re not extraneous flourishes in a message, but helpful cues that clarify what we mean to say,” reports the Huffington Post. According to studies, we process an emoji and human faces in much the same way.
At the Conference on Weblogs and Social Media in 2014, a group of computer scientists even went as far as to prove that embracing emoji’s is the eighth habit of highly successful people. Ultimately, sharing the happiness with a smiley emoji will not only boost your message but your levels of happiness too, and in turn make you more successful in what you do.
An Emoji can sweeten your words and make you more delightful – so why not embrace the many joyous faces on your favourite social media apps and share the love.