Back in the late '80s or early '90s, in a magazine called “Computer Language”, Stan Kelly-Bootle noted that interface use of icons was a reversion of written language to pictograms. We can see this reversion still more clearly in the case of emoticons (which fashion now calls “emoji”).
Kelly-Bootle wasn't calling for an end to pictograms, but for concern about their potential to subvert literacy. Indeed, dependence upon pictograms can subvert language itself, and thereby thought. Pictograms are a poor system for the expression of abstractions.
I have groaned at the way that Unicode has been hijacked to included ever more pictograms. I have simply attributed that hijacking to a felt need to support Applism (even outside the Apple platforms) as no more than a matter of entertaining consumers.
But I begin to wonder whether coaxing people into increasing use of pictograms is intended to encourage less literate communication.