DBQ.  Document based question.  If you have children currently attending public school (or maybe private, I’m not sure) you may have heard grumblings about DBQ’s.  Basically, students are presented with documents (articles, political cartoons, letters, speeches, etc) and are expected to answer questions based their prior knowledge, and said documents.  Today, I’m going to try my own version of a DBQ.

Example A: evidence found on iPad.

My daughter has this time management trick.  When life gets especially hectic, she takes Facebook and Instagram off her phone (not snapchat- lets not get totally crazy) and opens up her Facebook and Instagram on my iPad. (you know-  just in case there’s some breaking news in teenville)  But here’s the thing:  I get to see her Instagram notifications, and this is where the evidence begins.

Aperson replied to your comment:  Ï∑œΔµπ

Bperson replied to your comment: &%$*&

The answers are all a series of emojis.  Every single reply.  Not a word is exchanged- just little pictures. And it’s all Greek to me….

Example B:  Evidence found on billboard

Coming soon to a theater near you:  The Emoji Movie.

A movie.  Full length.  Based on emoji’s.

Hypothesis:

  1. Our world has now come 360.  We have officially reverted back to Cave person status.  Instead of using words to express our ideas, we have reverted back to pictures.  We have collectively decided that the use of words is outdated and too difficult to understand.
  2. The pictures are not always exactly what they seem though. (ie- I think one of them looks like a chocolate kiss, but sadly, that is not what it represents).  Only teenagers understand exactly what these pictures represent.  Adults are afraid to use anything other than the basic smiley face or thumbs up, for fear of gross miscommunication.

Conclusion:

I believe that the scholars, those that have spent years deciphering things, have been mislead.  I think the cave paintings were created by angst ridden teenagers just trying to confuse their parents, and society as a whole.  Pictures on walls have actually the opposite meaning of what the scholars believed.  Our whole society is based on a prank.  Somewhere there is a picture of a smirking teen, holding the Rosetta Stone, and saying- “This is going to be so much fun”.

25 thoughts on “DBQ- Emoji”

  1. I’m not sure if that’s a scary thought or a hopeful one. It could go so many ways. But very thought-provoking. Pictures tell a different part of a story and leave it so much more open to individual interpretation.

    I avoid emoji’s most of the time, but I do often use a simple “:)” for a smile. I like that some of my social media apps leave it like that and others convert it to the graphic.

    Technology… a mind of its own. Like you… with this excellent post! 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  5. The other problem is actually being able to even see the emojis without putting on the ‘old lady’ reading glasses. Definitely going to give the movie a miss – I saw the trailer, the ‘chocolate kiss’ emoji you refer to has been given an Indian accent!!!!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  7. Oh, I love this post!! I honestly thing that technology is causing the dumbing down of our society, and in a huge way. How soon will it be before no one can read or write at all? We just “ask Alexa” our questions, and write in emojis. And possibly grunt like cavemen.
    Although I like your theory that cavemen were probably quite eloquent, and those cave drawings were all done by teens…..

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  9. I love your take on the cave drawings. As the mother of sons, I can totally see that happening.

    What gets me is my 73 year old mom has fully hopped on the emoji bandwagon, sending me strands of happy little pictures that I can’t even see.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  10. I have to say I love emojis, but I have seen jokes comparing them to hieroglyphics. They are (alas) a necessary “evil” of the computer age. My teenage son has to keep explaining all the texting shorthand, though. Those are harder.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s