Agreed. There are in fact many languages (e.g. Mandarin and Japanese) that use symbols, in their written form, to represent concepts instead of letters, and some of those symbols were originally pictures, just like emojis.

The cool thing about emojis is that not only they can represent whole concepts in one character, but a lot of them are almost universal across languages and cultures. Pretty much anyone in the world understands an emoji of a laughing face.

Some sitcoms use laugh/fake audience tracks, and some people hate those too.

I think parent should have used 'formal', as there are still different writing styles. Formal, business, intimate, friend, etc.

Many do find emoticons inappropriate in some formats...

Emojis have their place, but this article uses just literal emojis right next to the actual word they represent. It's pretty much the most pointless use of emojis that I have ever seen.

For me personally there is something about letting words conjure an image in my head instead of relying on pictures. A good joke is funnier without a laughing emoji. And what's the point of emoji's in "but this journey is a marathon ️, not a sprint ️" sentence for example. For one, marathons are still run just slower.

I suppose because the author used both the word running and the emoji, the implications is that I need the emoji to understand the text.

I agree that emojis which express emotion not conveyed in text are useful. ;-)