Love them or hate them, emojis have become one of the most widely used pseudo-languages of our smartphone-based world. From sex to racial diversity, emojis have grown and adapted to fit the needs of those digital natives for whom a picture might very well be worth a thousand words. And for some children, emojis may soon become a powerful tool to express ideas and emotions too complex and overwhelming to put into words.
The French philosopher Roland Barthes, in his famous book of essays, Mythologies, once grumpily criticized the world of children’s toys, lambasting them as unimaginative and banal reproductions of the adult world. “Faced with this world of faithful and complicated objects, the child can only identify himself as owner, as user, never as creator,” wrote Barthes. “He does not invent the world, he uses it: there are, prepared for him, actions without adventure, without wonder, without joy.”
Seven-year-old Faith Lennox’s favorite colors are blue, purple, and pink—the same colors used to design her 3D-printed prosthetic arm, hand, and fingers that her parents purchased for a mere $50.
