Emoticons cannot replace face-to-face interaction

Children unable to accurately read how people are feeling in real-life as they have less time for face-to-face interaction due to their increased use of digital media, according to a UCLA psychology study. UCLA scientists found that sixth-graders who went five days without even glancing at a smartphone, television or other digital screen did substantially better at reading human emotions than sixth-graders from the same school who continued to spend hours each day looking at their electronic devices. 
“You can’t learn nonverbal emotional cues from a screen in the way you can learn it from face-to-face communication,” said lead author Yalda Uhls, a senior researcher with the UCLA’s Children's Digital Media Center, Los Angeles. People need more face-to-face interaction, emoticons are a poor substitute for it because we are social creatures, and we need device-free time.

Source: http://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/in-our-digital-world-are-young-people-losing-the-ability-to-read-emotions

Posted by: Cheu Che Suen B1300810