If you're not familiar with the world of emojis, bravo for holding out against the widely adopted trend. But now that (most) people have adopted pictographs for communication, could the shift in communication produce new kinds of landscapes?
The Sapir–Whorf hypothesis—that language shapes our thoughts—opens this examination by Sam Jacobs Studio of the potential impact of emojis (or pictographs to use the historic term) on how we think: "Now that we’ve begun scattering pictures amongst the traditional structures of letters, words, grammar, punctuation and so on, what kind of new thoughts might be forming in our minds?"
The post is especially concerned with how pictographs might change the way we describe and make places: "Just as Wordsworth, through written language, shaped a romantic understanding of the Lake District’s landscape so powerfully that it still frames our own vision, perhaps the emoji characters will become building blocks of new kinds of landscape that could never have been conceived without them."
FULL STORY: Emojiopolis
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UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research