Smiley

"Nikos, may ibubuhos ka no?" asked the mom while pouring an ice cold just-add-water iced tea on to the boy's glass. Nikos' face lighted up and continued his lament about his latest love escapade-- the newest girl of her dreams said 'Hi' in his facebook wall, and as if anticipating the disappointed and what's-the-fuss attitude of his audience, Nikos turned his laptop screen toward his spectators and with a starry eyed gleeful smile he blurted out, "May Smiley".

A smiley. It was all it took to make a lonesome teenager blissfully hopeful about his prospects for Valentines. The worst part for me was, all I could think of after the commercial was I'm so guilty of this.

Text and chat messages and recently wall posts in facebook delete something so important in human communication-- the fact that it came from a human. You cannot hear the other person's voice, nor watch his facial expression nor observe his other nonverbals.

With these kind of messages, thoughts and language are taken out of context. Too many fights are won and lost because something was lost in electronic translation-- and most often than not the lack of a smiley is the root of it all.

Person A: Kamusta? :)
Person B: ok lang.
Person A: galit ka? (with a worry smiley)
Person B: hindi.
Person A: Ba't ang sungit mo?
Person B: di kaya.
Person A: oo kaya, bakit walang smiley?
Person B: e di ko feel eh
Person A: Hmph! Bahala ka na diyan, kaw nga tong kinakamusta ayaw pa!
(and the fight ensues)


It's amazing how a colon and a parenthesis combined changes the way we read messages or rather what we read into it!


paul obmina entry no. 11