Features: Nov. 26, 2001

Telling It With a Smile

While it's fun to sprinkle emoticons such as smiles :-) frowns :-( and winks ;-) throughout e-mail messages, they are neither a surrogate for clear writing, nor an enhancement for electronic communication, says Joseph Walther, professor of computer mediated communication at Rensselaer.

"Emoticons have little impact on the actual message," says Walther and graduate student Kyle D'Addario in a study that was recently published in the Social Science Computer Review. "Emoticons frequently accompany e-mail messages, but they don't enhance or contradict the intended message. They are, at best,
redundant to the feelings of the person sending the e-mail."

Ninety-eight percent of those surveyed agreed that the :-) "smile" connoted happiness and the :-( "frown" emoticon conveyed sadness. Eighty-five percent surveyed thought ;-) "winking smile" connoted sarcasm and 66 percent deemed it "joking." Despite this widely shared interpretation, however, says Walther, the verbal message overrides the impact of emoticons in almost every case.

"In electronic communication, you are what you type," says Walther. "Contrary to popular opinion, you don't need little faces to express emotion online. People have a knack for letting their feelings show with words. Good writing and expressiveness are still the best ways to make a point, whether serious, sarcastic, or silly."