BBC — Can a new app foster empathy?
There is a lot of interest in linguistics and related areas these days on how things other than words contribute to meanings and on how users who don't have much more than words (in twitter, email, etc.) try to achieve the kinds of effects they can get from prosody (pitch movement, etc.), gesture, facial expressions, and so on. This has usually focused on things like the use of font sizes, emoticons, hashtags, and abbreviations like lol. Alongside this, of course, there have been technologies which make use of images as well as words (snapchat, instagram, etc.)
The new app which Biz Stone is launching sounds like another interesting example. I love the idea that you can only start a post with a superlative. This is surely to do with encouraging positivity, which I think is an excellent idea. Of course, humans will no doubt use it for negative as well as positive messages . . .
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