Ideas change everything

In defense of emojis

86,755 plays|

Jenna Schilstra |

TED@UPS

• September 2016

A simple emoji can help clarify and amplify subtext so that we can better understand each other, but their benefits extend far beyond enhancing our daily texts and emails. Marketing analyst and avid emoji-defender Jenna Schilstra demonstrates how these pictograms are being used in new ways, like helping abused children describe complex emotions, or giving new communication methods to people on the autism spectrum. In the end, Schilstra says, these new expressions might be making expression itself more accessible.

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

A simple emoji can help clarify and amplify subtext so that we can better understand each other, but their benefits extend far beyond enhancing our daily texts and emails. Marketing analyst and avid emoji-defender Jenna Schilstra demonstrates how these pictograms are being used in new ways, like helping abused children describe complex emotions, or giving new communication methods to people on the autism spectrum. In the end, Schilstra says, these new expressions might be making expression itself more accessible.

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

About the speaker

Jenna Schilstra

Emoji defender

Jenna Schilstra grew up in a country divided between two languages: Dutch and French-speaking Belgium. A childhood steeped in languages seeded a lifelong yearning to overcome language barriers and communicate with the unfamiliar. As a customer technology manager on UPS’s mobile strategy team, Schilstra's international perspective has informed the expansion of the company’s mobile presence to 83 countries.

About TED Institute

Every year, TED works with a group of select companies and foundations to identify internal ideators, inventors, connectors, and creators. Drawing on the same rigorous regimen that has prepared speakers for the TED main stage, TED Institute works closely with each partner, overseeing curation and providing intensive one-on-one talk development to sharpen and fine tune ideas. The culmination is an event produced, recorded, and hosted by TED, generating a growing library of valuable TED Talks that can spur innovation and transform organizations.

Read more about the TED Institute