Is modern communication making American teenagers of us all :-(

It was my birthday last week and I spent most of it - not pondering life and growth and wisdom as I should have - but saying thank you to the many messages I received, wait for this, with big red heartsI

I also sent some special friends flying kisses emerging from the mouth of a creature that can best be described as Rainbow Cat meets Fluffy Teddy. I know, I know… there are probably better and more nuanced emojis and gifs out there, but given my age ( and now another year older, sigh) I don’t know of them. I go for the ones readily available on WhatsApp ( probably prioritised by an algorithm based on usage) and they tend to be colourful, loud and well.. American. They blink, they flash, they even emit stars and bubbles and they do not reflect anything that my persona, my age or my relationships are about. However, they are the Lingua Franca of the medium and widely understood as polite acknowledgement of a message; and I have been brought up to be unfailingly polite - so there you go!

While I have adopted the manners of the times, I am fundamentally uncomfortable with them and a new year of my life is a good time to start evaluating my response to e-tiquette.

My three main quarrels with the emojis and   GIFs so readily thrust on me by social media  are as follows:

1. They are not culturally differentiated enough - so the word ‘pizza’ will reveal a slice of the delicious dish but samosa ( now a staple snack in many parts of the world) will not reveal an image and might even autocorrect! I had managed to teach my previous IPhone some form of Romanised Hindi by using the Hindi language keyboard option so if I typed in the word ‘pani’ ( Hindi for water) even on the English keyboard it would show a droplet of water, but it seems to have disappeared on my new phone. Did some coder in Mountain View, California decide to eliminate the glitch??? Not an Indian coder surely - it is time Sillycon Valley and AI embraced cultural variety. Bring on the Botero figure arms-akimbo hug that looks like it can encapsulate the whole globe.

2. The emojis tend to be over-the-top caricatures of emotions that I have long ceased to experience in real life. I know longer ‘luurve’ with a bursting red heart nor ‘hate’ with an angry red face. Maybe I did when I was a teenager and my world was more binary but mature living is way more nuanced than that. I might ‘admire’ and ‘respect’ someone I like and get annoyed or irritable with someone whose company I do not relish, but no more than that. However, the minute these people appear on my phone screen with their messages on Facebook or WhatsApp I am forced to ‘heart’ whatever it is they are saying or sob copiously with twin waterfalls running down by face or wonder with my eyes popping and mouth open wide. I do think sometimes about giving a safe, solid and staid thumbs up to their comments, but buried in a field of red hearts - my indifference would be considered cold or rude. Peer pressure compels me to express larger than life emotions I have not felt for a very long time. I sometimes wonder whether it is this binary response to most things that has been the death of civilised debate on the net. How can you acknowledge another’s point of view if you are equipped only with hearts, kisses, grim red faces and punches?  Is it any wonder then that immature vocal attacks and diatribes are the order of the day? You have to be pro-Modi or anti-Modi, love Trump or hate him. You have to believe in cancel culture otherwise you are supporting some combination of racism, slavery, colonialism, casteism and sexism. I am still looking in this hyperbolic universe for an emoji to perfectly express ‘ I agree with some of the views expressed - though I stop well short of loving the writer. ‘ Or an avatar that says ‘Mature reader with nuanced views on immigration and fiscal policy.’ Probably hard to find in Riverdale High School or wherever the beating red hearts of Gen Z dwell,  but let me know if you find one.

3. Social display rules have changed over the years. It has certainly become more acceptable to show emotion, but at what cost? Is the stiff upper lip now just a Botox side effect? Grown men cry rivers , angry grown women emit smoke from their nostrils and teenagers … well, they go to Pop Tate’s Choklit Shoppe and have a soda while sending flying kisses to people. And we all do it in an unthinking way calling it good manners or socially acceptable behaviour - but is it? Has globalisation and the internet made American teenagers of us all?

Given the dominance of American founders in the social media empires of Meta, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snapchat and Reddit, it is only natural that the predominant culture reflected is American. I remember my 21st birthday was spent reading a book that made me think deeply and choose wisely. I decided shortly after to go to another city and live on my own.  It was Virginia Woolf’s ‘ A Room of One’s Own’ and I still remember the flushed anticipation of my life to come as I reached the last page of the dog-eared copy borrowed from the college library. I had spent the day reflecting on my life as an adult, reading and helping in the kitchen. Friends did figure but I cannot remember who, now. We got together in the evening for a home cooked meal at my parents’ place and ended with the biggest indulgence -a fresh cream and pineapple cake from Nirula’s. It was the premier patisserie of Delhi in those days; more Punjabi than Parisian but all that cream oooh, delicious! The talk was about getting jobs and what we were going to do after university. There were only local friends. I don’t think I knew anybody outside Delhi or India except a German pen friend who used to study in a ‘Gymnasium’ and sent me a birthday card well in advance each year. The flutter of the light blue aerogramme with its many and colourful stamps was like opening an exciting present and I used to spend hours composing a suitable reply. I don’t think I ever drew a heart or anything but I loved Helga dearly and signed off with ‘ yours affectionately’ every time. It never got stronger than that.

And now, an older and wiser me carelessly throws about loud emotional emoticons to help my computer mediated communication with assorted friends all over the world!

Ah well, as one gets older, it is sometimes nice to be young and inhabit Archie Andrew’s carefree emotional world. So I channel my inner Betty, flick my blonde ponytail back and prepare to get another year younger.