To emote or not to emote? That is the question.

Okay. Admit it. How many of you out there use those cute little emoticons to help you make a point in your emails and texts :-?

Until recently, I would have guessed that the majority of you out there raising your hands (because I'm sure that you're getting that interactive with my blog ;-) are females. You know, because they're cute and all that.

But here's the thing: email is notoriously bad for communicating feeling. Humans use facial expression and body gestures far more than anything else in trying to 'read' a person's true feelings. The telephone can be somewhat helpful because it allows you to hear the inflections and tones of a person's voice. But email...not so much.

And that leaves all of us, men and women, with the problem of expressing our feelings through our various electronic devices.

Hence, the emoticon :-)

I would be willing to bet that these little expressions were first picked up, for the most part, by women. However, my recent experience has shown me that we have all come to understand the importance of using these faces as a way of expressing how we feel.

They have apparently :-), :-(, and :-/ their way over the gender barrier!

Not only do I find these guys popping up in emails and texts from friends, but recently, in researching for my story on the Annie Lytle School building, I saw emoticons showing up in emails from grown men that I was contacting about information. One of which was the host and producer of a local television show! And wasn't it my husband that first introduced me to this little guy, :-*, via text message?

So here is my question, just how acceptable are emoticons in our contact with others? Does it depend on the situation or the person? Somehow, I just don't think that this one, >: -( , would be taken seriously in an angry email to your phone company or lawyer, etc. But who doesn't feel good when the little smiley face shows up, regardless of the situation? :-)

So maybe it has to do with the emotion itself? No one wants to receive an angry email or text, but send out those happy, funny ones any time. I guess it's just part of being human that makes us feel like we have to find a way to show our emotion in emails.

There are, of course, other ways to do that. Such as the use of italics to stress a point. One could even use color as a way of evoking emotion in a reader. But nothing seems quite as effective as those little emoticons. Not to mention that they actually look like a human facial expression, which as I mentioned earlier, is one of the main ways that people read feelings in others. That alone may be why they are so appealing to us.

Whatever the case may be, they've somehow become as common as the question mark in our electronic communications. Until technology develops a way for the computers themselves to talk and show facial expressions to clarify what we mean, those little emoticons may just be a fact of life in today's world. Even to the point that a number of programs, this one NOT included, give you the option of a variety of little yellow 'smiley' faces with different expressions to choose from in place of the colon/parenthesis face.

So don't be surprised if you find yourself trying to find a way to make your intentions clear in that next email and feeling that the cute little emoticon is the way to go. You won't be the only one!

Here's to many more :-) in your future!