1.

0 INTRODUCTION

The topic of the journal article is “What Words Can’t Say” by Alexis M. Elder which an
observation of emoji and other non-verbal elements of technologically-mediated
communication based on Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society. In
general, human communication is both social and cognitive because it is a process by which
individuals exchange information and influence one another through a common system of
symbols and signs. Furthermore, verbal communication takes place through face-to-face
conversations, group discussion, counselling, memos, letter, reports, notes, email and more
while non-verbal communication is usually understood as the process of communication
through sending and receiving wordless messages. Other than that, nonverbal communication
is the process of sending and receiving messages without using words, either spoken or
written. It is also called manual language [ CITATION Ric19 \l 17417 ].

Interpersonal Communication is communication between two persons or among a small

group of persons. In addition, interpersonal communication is the process of exchange of
information, ideas, feelings and meaning between two or more people through verbal and
non-verbal communication methods. According to [ CITATION Jen16 \l 17417 ] nowadays,
technology has long played a role in altering communication and interaction between people.
Major changes such as the Telegram, Snapchat, Facebok, Twitter and more. Constant
interaction and sharing of experiences is in part a result of Internet and its prevalence in our
lives. Social media websites and applications such as Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat
change what it means to be a friend and what it means to communicate with other people
especially in interpersonal communication. But recent innovation provide many option to
enhance or replace text messages. Computer-mediated communication (CMC) has been
described as lacking nonverbal cues, which affects the nature of interpersonal interaction via
the medium. Yet much computer-mediated communication (CMC) conveys nonverbal cues
in terms of chronemics or time-related messaged [ CITATION Tid09 \l 17417 ] . The fastest-
growing social media systems in recent times have facilitated image exchange. Emoticons
have been around since 1982 but only actually moved into mainstream communication over
recent years as social media has grown and emoji’s reached phone keyboards. The method
that used by the researcher is content analysis which is framed in light of relevant literature
from variety of fields including neuroscience, behavioural economics and social psychology.

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2.0 ISSUES

2.1 The Relationship between Non-verbal Communication and Intimacy

Relationship

In general, human communicate only 7 percent of communication in verbal while

38 percent in vocal for how we say it and 55 percent is the nonverbal communication.
Therefore, when we are not communicating face-to-face, the vast majority of our
communication skills are negated. Snapchat is one of the fastest-growing social media
services at present. Based on users report that they especially value it for
communicating with their most intimate connections. Snapchat is interesting because
it is used most frequently for contact with close social connections. One of the
benefits of non-verbal elements of textual communication are twofold. They help with
the direction of attention and they influence affective or emotional states. Attention
from our loved is an important part of care which is central to intimate relationships.
In addition, in digital environments demands on attention are many. The influence of
technologically mediated communication’s non-verbal on attention involves three
factors which are temporality, shared images and the importance of faces to human
cognitive system. Quick responses can be indicative of the participants’ interest in the
each other conversation while slower responses can show a variety of things from
disinterest to thoughtfulness. This makes message timing a rich information channel
for both participants. It conveys facts about how and when attention is devoted to the
conversation. This can be a source of interpersonal dispute. It can make people’s
decisions transparent, even if not the reasons that led to them. But it does so in an
environment that facilitates people’s keeping in touch despite differing schedules.
Thus, timing can itself be a complex factor in technologically mediated conversations.
Some communication channels also include ephemeral messaging capabilities. The
most famous is Snapchat’s disappearing snaps. But other platforms also include such
capabilities. Google’s Allo has an incognito mode allowing participants to specify
how long messages in a conversation will remain visible while Instagram has
introduced a disappearing messages feature. This can effect on the sender’s comfort
level with disclosing sensitive information and sentiments. Non-verbal phenomena
can also influence the sender’s attention. Emoji, selfies and other quickly conveyed
images can communicate nuance, context, and emotional overtones. This facilitates
rich exchange that more closely approximates the possibilities of face-to-face

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communication. It allows us to construct digital messages with facial expressions and
contextual clues provided more or less unconsciously face-to-face. Thus, it lowers the
cost of conveying this emotional information.

Other than that, joint attention is an important social phenomenon. One

person can invite another to engage in joint attention by pointing, following another’s
gaze, saying “look here”, or a variety of other methods. By inviting another to attend
to the same phenomenon as oneself, many shared projects are made possible. It can
also be thought of as an invitation to share a focus or a way of seeing things. By
sharing images using technologically mediated communication, senders invite
recipients to engage in joint attention. The significance of this affordance is not to be
underestimated. Joint attention through shared images can be instrumentally valuable.
It can help people to send information and coordinate activities.

Furthermore, there is value specifically in sharing images of faces. Such faces

can be stylized or cartoonish such as with emoji, photographed or filmed. Many of the
most common emoji are of facial expressions. And upwards of 50 percent of Snapchat
messages consist of selfies. Facial expressions can communicate a wide variety of
both basic and complex emotions in compact form. Standard emoji have found
widespread adoption in interpersonal communication. Also, at least two aspects of
smartphones enable quick and easy introduction of “selfies” to conversations. Front-
facing cameras make it easy for users to photograph themselves without relying on
mirrors or helpful strangers. And integrating cameras into the same device that posts
to social media eliminates a step. Users no longer need to photograph with one device
and then upload images to a computer to share their pictures via social media. Both
features make it easy and intuitive to incorporate our own facial expressions into
conversations. The importance of faces to communication in interpersonal
relationships should be unsurprising. It is unsurprising that including faces increases
the attention paid to messages. In addition to impacting attention, non-verbal
components of technologically mediated communication can impact users’ emotional
affect and evaluations. They can influence both senders and messages. Thus, they can
affect the character of relationships sustained by technologically mediated
communication. The presence of faces in messages seems likely to change how
messages are interpreted and how recipients react to the messages. Recipients are

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likely to be more altruistic, honest and generous in their responses to messages with
faces than those without.

Moreover, with Snapchat, the ephemerality of messages may help lead to

sillier behaviour. With emoji, ephemerality is not an issue. But they have an
intrinsically silly and disarming appearance. Another factor that helps them encourage
playful behavior may be the lack of connection between images and sender. Unlike a
selfie, an array of generic facial expressions can help one to maintain some level of
detachment from what is being conveyed. One may feel more comfortable “playing
around” with them. There is less potential for self-consciousness or embarrassment
with emoji than images associated with the self. The playfulness and humor discussed
above can be good for intimate relationships. Emotionally rich technologically
mediated communication may support interpersonal emotional honesty by helping
users to practice what we might think of as detachment without disengagement. It
helps us exercise the ability to acknowledge and communicate a wide range of
feelings via playful and expressively powerful but flexible imagery. At the same time,
it lowers the cost of doing so by shielding users from their interlocutors’ potentially
intimidating gaze.

2.2 The Relationship between Non-verbal Communication on Self-perception

People often adopt their attention to relationships, express their feelings and
exchange of views will be more attention, better communicate feelings and more
playful. As noted above, emoji to help express emotions that are socially challenged.
Keeping emotions to others can help us to recognize them as our aspects. This seems
to be very strong when they are expressed in a form that can be seen by us as a
receiver. In addition, design your own emoji can help us understand our own
emotions. It can help people who introspection emoji actually express their feelings in
a non-judgmental environment. Emoji may also help people overcome a tendency to
think of emotions in simple binaries as pro or con, positive or negative attitudes.
Based on [ CITATION Ash18 \l 17417 ] said that emojis have become a way to convey the
tone and non-verbal context behind our texts, direct message or tweets and work
amazingly alongside snippets of text as a way to give more context to a message.
Other than that, roles of stickers and selfies are differ than emojis. The images seem to

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 be powerful because their meaning are intended to be indeterminate. Selfies is used as
emotional punctuation in textual communication and may offer a different advantage.
Selfies are less neutral in that they are images of the user.

3.0 CRITICAL ANALYSIS

3.1 The Impact of Non-verbal Communication on Intimate Relationships

According to [ CITATION Exf10 \l 17417 ] said that communication in a relationship

is one of the core essentials that bind individuals together. Good and effective
communication makes a successful relationship whether in the personal or
professional aspect. Communication in whatever from serves a specific purpose of
passing information. Nonverbal communication constitutes a large portion of human
communication behaviour. Non-verbal in text communication have a positive
influence on both relationship and self-perception. Interactions with intimates are
improved by their impacts on attention of the senders, recipients and joint attention
thus it encouraging expression of emotions. As we all know, attention is a valuable
resource in interpersonal relationship. Expression of emotions is generally valuable.
Expressed emotions make parties aware of each other’s emotions and stimulate
response. Moreover, impact of non-verbal communication also can improved and
increased attention and altruistic impulses promoted by features such as the use of
facial imagery which is activates neural regions associated with the social
interactions. Furthermore, the impact of non-verbal communication on intimate
relationships can help improve your relationship. These technologies assist with
introspecting on the quality and content of one’s own emotional states. Users of the
relevant communication media can then be thought of as engaging in virtuous cycles.

3.2 The Impact of Nonverbal Communication on Self-Perception

Non-verbal cues can help you to get an accurate reading of unspoken feelings and
messages underlying the others, creating a feeling of trust through transparency they
create and demonstrate an understanding of and interest. Moreover, it also help us to
self-author and control both our participation in relationship and how we are
perceived by others. They have create reflexive feedback loops where how we see
ourselves changes how we interact. Based on [ CITATION Aus17 \l 17417 ] pointed out
theory that is Media Richness Theory (MRT) that was originally proposed by Daft

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 and Lengel (1986) that provides a framework for understanding how accurately
different communication mediums are able to replicate the information being sent
over them. Therefore, communication technologies have positive connection to
emotional.

6.0 CONCLUSION

Based on the journal article, the researcher make a surveyed a variety of non-verbal
communication elements of contemporary technologically mediated communication.
According to [ CITATION Pau15 \l 17417 ] said that, communicating via emoji and stickers is
often faster, richer and more expressive than via text. Regarding to [ CITATION Ali19 \l 17417 ]
pointed out that, as we can see, nonverbal communication is adapting to the technological
evolution. In this day and age, we are able to reconstruct most oral communication into
writing. Even though not exactly the same, people are able to pick up on nonverbal cues and
understand emotions, thoughts and feelings expressed by others without the need of words.
The basic realization of the strategy of non-verbal communication, more than what is actually
said to help increase interaction with others. Knowledge of these signs can be used to
encourage people to discuss their problems and can lead to greater understanding that after all
communication purposes. Non-verbal communication is natural and spontaneous, no one can
control it but there is the possibility of good relations with others with regard to the guidance
and instructions that accompany the words. Based on [ CITATION Suz14 \l 17417 ] , the power of
nonverbal communication is huge, so it's important not only to learn how to accurately read
the others, but it is also important to know what you convey through your own body
language. Successful communication will require that you do not weaken your voice message
with nonverbal signals that damage. Therefore, nonverbal communication is not getting lost
in a digital world, it has simply adapted and is evolving with it.

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