With the ever increasing popularity of Twitter and the rise of video and image based social media such as SnapChat and Instagram, it’s natural to wonder if in fact human language is disappearing and evolving into pictures. This answer is – no. The truth of the matter is emoticons and emojis are the origins of language and the alphabet and the only thing they will do in the future, is enchance the way we communicate, not replace it.

Ben Zimmer, Exective Producer at Vocabulary.com and Sam Huston of Jumptank, discussed the history of the emoticon as well as why its important to embrance this form of communication. I also managed to have a chat with Sam using the new Google Glass at the end of the panel