Is there a technical term to describe why we feel the need to put emoticons and smileys in our writing?

One often wants to convey a kind of mood when writing a comment to another person, especially if what we're saying is ambiguous or can be taken offensively. So, one adds a smiley or an emoticon. Is there a technical term for what they add or impart to the English language?

Solution 1:

Well, if you want a technical term, it's the limited bandwidth of text. (For certain values of "technical"...) It's frequently claimed that in-person vocal communication is something like 60% body language and 30% tone of voice; in text communication we get neither, implying that we're making do with 10% of the normal bandwidth, or range of expression. This makes many things that would be clear in in-person vocal communication ambiguous in text, so we invent things like emoticons to try to compensate.

I also occasionally refer to the emotive flatness of text.

Solution 2:

There may well be a better term for it, but at first blush I would say this is adding non-verbal cues to our written interactions.