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In written forms of communication, smileys or emoticons are used to portray the mood of the message. To make the smiley faces, colons or semicolons are used for the eyes and various letters are used for the mouth to display the emotion. For instance a smiley face with a wink and a smile is a semicolon with a closing parenthesis. Example ; ) For a frown a colon with a left hand parentheses. Example : ( . A big smile is a colon with a capital D. Example : D

The difference between the two is that smileys use purely text characters while the second group are pictures of little yellow faces which express the same emotions of the text smiles but without the usage of text based characters. Such little pictures can be had from smileyCentral.

Thanks to the use of text messaging on cell phones, instant messaging (IM) and message boards the use of smileys and emoticons for informal written communications has soared.

With the increasing use of the internet and wireless digital telecommunications, the adoption of the smileys has taken prominence. This movement was initiated by the youth and there is probably not a young person out there who does not know the meaning or usage of smileys.

While the early use of smileys expressed only happiness and sadness, the variety of symbols has increased to now be able to show disbelief, anger, surprise and playfulness as well.

Emoticons are used more by females than males which may be attributed to females being more adept at using them and possibly to females being more in tune with the nuances of expressing emotions in text.

Obvious benefits of using emoticons is shorter messages to convey intimate text messages although some criticize their use as being detrimental to having depth in human communications.

The future of these symbols seems to have plateaued. All expressions possible using text characters seem to have been used up. Emoticons can display a wider range of emotions since they are not limited. The future of more nuanced symbols lies within message forums since their text messages are often longer and more detailed, thus requiring a wider range of symbols.

Last 5 posts by Heather Simpson

• Express How You Feel With a Smiley! - May 6th, 2008

Tags: Humor