Non Verbal Communication

I think of texting as non-verbal communication. We can relay messages to each other, but we do not get to see any non-verbal body communication/language. Because of this I think we use emoticons. With the emoticons we can express many different feelings. Often times it is almost impossible to tell if someone is telling a joke, being completely serious, or somewhat in between. In most instances when I am sending a text message that I want them to take as a joke I will put a smiley face like :) or if its really funny :D. If I am poking fun at someone but want them to laugh I may put a ;). Other non-verbal but abbreviations that can be used are phrases that tell them what you are doing verbally like "LOL", laugh out loud, or haha, as in you are laughing. Although these are intended to be useful, there are still times where the emoticons can be misunderstood. In these cases the only fix would be to have a real face-to-face conversation where real emotions can be seen by the body's expressions. Other expressions such as a <3 for love may seem less passionate than the actual words "I love you" coming from a persons mouth. Because of the increase in technology I think more emoticons will be made, but the important part is that these non-verbal communications are understood correctly.