Emoticons

I may be stating the obvious, and I have posted something like this before.

Emoticons epitomise the asperger problem with social communication. Neurotypicals (people not on the spectrum) supplement their social conversation with facial expressions and other body language. This allows two things to happen - it enables them to diversify the meanings of words - facial expressions provide an accent or perspective, or warn of a double meaning, or support humour. Secondly they allow NTs to abbreviate language, useful in social contexts, but especially when texting.

People on the spectrum don't seem to comprehend facial expressions, or don't look out for them, or are not fast enough at assimilating them. So we rely on spoken language alone, and usually we do not abbreviate - hence we are perceived as being too verbal or posh or pedantic.

NTs when texting find emoticons useful to create the same expressions as they would use to supplement real conversion, to say when they are joking, or using a double meaning, or addressing one person in particular etc etc.

I suspect that when we see emoticons we are little better at comprehending their purpose than we are of reading facial expressions.

I know I seldom use emoticons and find them awkward. Thing is I know what I meant to write in text. I'm not good at appreciating how it reads to others. So having failed to use emoticons to get round that, I get a load of flack I cannot comprehend.

I may be stating the obvious, and I have posted something like this before.

Emoticons epitomise the asperger problem with social communication. Neurotypicals (people not on the spectrum) supplement their social conversation with facial expressions and other body language. This allows two things to happen - it enables them to diversify the meanings of words - facial expressions provide an accent or perspective, or warn of a double meaning, or support humour. Secondly they allow NTs to abbreviate language, useful in social contexts, but especially when texting.

People on the spectrum don't seem to comprehend facial expressions, or don't look out for them, or are not fast enough at assimilating them. So we rely on spoken language alone, and usually we do not abbreviate - hence we are perceived as being too verbal or posh or pedantic.

NTs when texting find emoticons useful to create the same expressions as they would use to supplement real conversion, to say when they are joking, or using a double meaning, or addressing one person in particular etc etc.

I suspect that when we see emoticons we are little better at comprehending their purpose than we are of reading facial expressions.

I know I seldom use emoticons and find them awkward. Thing is I know what I meant to write in text. I'm not good at appreciating how it reads to others. So having failed to use emoticons to get round that, I get a load of flack I cannot comprehend.