Instagram, Pinterest, Emojis: images are becoming increasingly important in the world of the Internet.

Images have a much more direct impact on people, are easily codifiable, and universally understandable. This is why social media users who use more graphic content than text are increasing.

If images are the most prevalent content on the internet, how can we search for them by entering words in the search bar?

To solve this problem, Pinterest introduced visual search, a new feature that allows you to search for content that you wouldn’t be able to describe in words. How does it work?

If you notice a detail that catches your eye within a Pin and want to search for visually similar content, simply select the desired part with the magnifying glass: the search will begin.

The first social media platforms to achieve great success, Facebook and Twitter, base their content equally on images and text for the former and on a lot of text and few images for the latter. Now, however, the fastest-growing social media platforms, the latest ones like Instagram and Pinterest, have almost completely eliminated text, relying exclusively on photos and graphics.

Further confirmation that people prefer images to words is the research by Oxford Dictionaries, according to which the most used “word” in message exchanges is the emoji representing the face with tears of joy. Emojis meet needs that language cannot satisfy, such as speed and immediacy in describing and depicting a specific situation or emotion.

In a globalized world, where thanks to the Internet we can be in contact with people living in different states and continents, the use of images guarantees quick and universal communication and will, therefore, reach ever greater levels of importance.