EMOTICONS AND THE NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION: WITH REFERENCE TO FACEBOOK
In the recent years, the use of emoticons in text-based and computer-mediated communications has gained a lot of popularity. Though emoticons (a combination of punctuation marks and letters) first began as a representation of facial expression, they have over the years been transformed to now include graphical representations of a variety of items (both static and animated). The usage of emoticons and their interpretation differ from one person to another, depending on factors such as gender, age and culture. Facebook is a platform where people across the globe communicate, share opinions and connect with each other. The researcher, thus, seeks to understand whether emoticons have the ability to infuse the text-based computer-mediated- communications on Facebook with the richness and authenticity of face-to-face interactions, and to arrive at an understanding of how these different groups use and interpret emoticons. A sample size of 139 was selected using the snowball sampling technique. The methods of primary data collection included surveys in the form of questionnaires that were distributed online. A quantitative analysis of the collected data was conducted using SPSS. The study revealed that age, gender and location do have a bearing on the patterns of usage and interpretation of emoticons. It also showed that emoticons cannot provide the text-based computer-mediated- communications on Facebook with the richness and authenticity of face-to-face interactions.