Do Those Little "Smiley-Faces" In Electronic Mail Have An Effect On The Reader?

Kyle P. D’Addario

State University of New York at Buffalo

This thesis examines the influence that emoticons (a.k.a. "smiley faces") have on readers of email messages. It is hypothesized that emoticons will generate greater affective responses in readers of email than would a message with no emoticon. It was also predicted that emoticons would generate different types of affective responses than would specific emotional verbal messages. In other words, emoticons would trigger a different affective state than would the verbal message alone. Lastly, it was suggested that emoticons would serve a function in information processing. More specifically, a message containing an emoticon would facilitate recall of information more so than a message without emoticons. Results indicate that emoticons serve no function in eliciting greater, or different, emotional responses than messages without emoticons. However it was found that explicit emotional verbal messages generated greater affective responses than messages with emoticons. In fact, explicit emotional verbal messages along with emoticons generated less of an affective response than just the message alone, suggesting that the emoticon served to confuse the reader of the message. Results also indicate that emoticons have no impact on information processing. Results are discussed along with possibilites for future research in the area of interpersonal CMC, specifically the use of emoticons.

1. Introduction:

With the creation and evolution of the personal computer and internet, the use of electronic mail (email) has become increasingly widespread. The study of electronic mail systems and other forms of Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) has grown as well. Email systems are commonplace in practically all university settings, along with many facets of public business. The internet service America On Line (AOL) typifies the expansion of internet and email users. AOL gained one million users in less than a two month period between November 1997 and January 1998, bringing their total membership to over eleven million people (America On Line, on-line). Despite the throngs of people signing up with internet carriers, the effectivness and value of email has received very little empirical attention.

One perceived limitation of email is it’s reliance on verbal communication – the nonverbal channel is excluded. Sproull and Kiesler (1986, p.1493) argued that one of the fundamental characteristics of email is that, "...[it] is text based. Unlike facsimile or telephone, electronic mail has no picture or sound components. Messages can be conveyed only through text." Wheras some new technologies attempting to incorporate nonverbal cues (paralanguage) have found their way into current email systems, many email systems are still text based systems. Despite this claim, there is an emerging vocabulary of nonverbal symbols, or emoticons employed by many email communicators. As early as 1982, Hiltz and Turoff stated, "...computer conferees also find ways to overcome the lack of personal contact. They have even devised ways of sending computerized screams, hugs and kisses" (cited in Pollack, 1982). While these computerized "screams" may still be text based "pictures," they apparently exist to function as something greater.

Research indicates that individuals are clearly influenced by the use of nonverbal cues in other contexts, such as written advertising (e.g.. Shepard, 1967; Childers and Houston, 1984). It would be useful to determine if the nonverbal dialog in email exerts similar effects on communication outcomes as in more traditional face-to-face contexts. Little is known about what effects emoticons have on readers of electronic mail. Does the use of emoticons allow for greater understanding of affect in email messages? Also, does the use of nonverbal cues have any effect on retention of information in email messages? In other words, does the presence of emoticons serve to help people remember the information in the message?

2. Theoretical Perspective:

A. Variables and Literature Review

To study the effects of emoticons in email, a number of variables need to be identified. The effects of emoticons in email messages on the readers’ understanding of affect and retention of the material in the message can be measured. There is a body of literature that demonstrates that CMC, and specifically emoticons, have been considered by researchers.

Some have argued that CMC is less friendly and socially-oriented than traditional forms of communication (see for example Hiltz, Johnson, and Turoff, 1986). Others have pondered the implications that the continued rise of CMC has on human communication. Rice and Love (1987, p.86) state, "A general question raised by the diffusion of CMC systems is the extent to which human communication is altered by such media." Rice and Love (1987, p.88) go on to say, "...as bandwidth narrows, media allow less ‘social presence’; communication is likely to be described as less friendly, emotional, or personal and more serious, businesslike, or task oriented."

When examining traditional forms of nonverbal feedback, Kiesler, Siegel, and McGuire (1984, p.1125) speculate that, "Traditional forms of communication, head nods, smiles, eye contact, distance, tone of voice, and other nonverbal behavior give speakers and listeners information they can use to regulate, modify, and control exchanges. Electronic communication may be inefficient for resolving such...problems..." While this early literature suggests that CMC is unfriendly and impersonal, it is worth noting that heavy users of CMC have found ways to get around the apparent lack of emotional cues in text-based CMC.

As CMC became more mainstream, users were not limited by interest, accessibility, or understanding, but rather by the technological limitations of ASCII based communication. To overcome these problems, new symbols were created and incorporated into CMC usage. As more people began to use email, and computers played a more significant role in the everyday lives of these people, ASCII based "smiley faces," or emoticons, began to appear.

The use of the emoticon has grown with the development of CMC. Sanderson (1993, p.1) defined a smiley (or emoticon) as, "...a sequence of ordinary characters you can find on your computer keyboard. Smileys are used in e-mail [sic] and other forms of communication using computers." Some of the subtleties found in electronic mail interaction, according to Sanderson, would be lost without the use of emoticons. Godin (1993, p.4) agrees, "Until the advent of the smiley, otherwise known as an emoticon, individuals using electronic communication had no way to indicate the subtle mood changes. They couldn’t tell jokes, use irony, slip in a pun or become bitingly sarcastic." While this may be an overstatement, Godin argues his point by stating, "Properly used, a smiley can spice up virtually any form of written communication. Now you can say, ‘Boy, isn’t he intelligent :-) ’ and make it quite clear you think the subject is an idiot."

Danet and Rosenbaum-Tamari (1997, on-line) support Godin and Sanderson. Danet and Rosenbaum-Tamari define emoticons as,"...icons for the expression of emotion, or for marking one’s intent as non-serious...The best known ones are a smile, wink, and frown, respectively: :-) ;-) :-( " Danet and Rosenbaum-Tamari (1997, on-line) argue that the development of CMC from a work-related medium to a playful medium is a key ingredient to the continued development and use of emoticons. "[CMC]....refer[ed] to a work-related meeting; thus, many people may have expected the general frame of the messages exchanged to be ‘serious.’ The perception of the medium as cold and anonymous, and lacking in ‘social presence’ because of non-verbal cues such as facial expressions also contributed to this expectation." Danet and Rosenbaum-Tamari feel that CMC has developed into a playful medium, and has moved away from the cold, unfeeling past of early types of CMC.

Bolter (1991, p.130) also feels that CMC is developing as it moves away from a serious work-related medium to a new playful medium. Bolter states, "Playfulness is a defining quality of this new medium. Electronic literature will remain a game, just as all computer programming is a game. [Hypertext]...grows out of...computer games....the impermanence of electronic literature cuts both ways: as there is no lasting success, there is also no failure that needs to last. By contrast, there is a solemnity at the center of printed literature -- even comedy, romance and satire -- because of the immutability of the printed page."

Marvin (1995, on-line) also supports the notion of the emoticon as finding its way into everyday CMC interactions. Marvin discusses CMC within the Multiple-User Domain, Object-Oriented environment (MOO). A MOO is a type of Multiple-User Domain (MUD), that allows for synchronous communication via the internet. This can allow users to "chat" as if they were in the same room, and move around in a virtual space. MOOs are one of the most common forms of Internet chat. According to Marvin, "The text that may be communicated within MOOs is limited, as it is in most Internet forms, to the range of characters on a typical computer keyboard...An informal, everyday quality is created through the use of smileys, non-standard spelling reflective of vernacular pronunciation, punctuation to indicate pauses rather than speech clauses, special symbols borrowed from programming languages and an extensive special vocabulary." In other words, Marvin is talking about the emoticon. Marvin (1995, on-line) continues, "Some attention...has been lately put on the emergence of ‘smileys’ as a special feature of writing on the Internet...These symbols are the paralanguage of the internet." This is further support that the computer using society has attempted to incorporate traditional types of interactive nonverbal cues. Marvin realizes, however, that the emoticon system is not perfect. "...smiles in face-to-face contexts can be strategic or spontaneous and unintentional. In the context of the MOO...every smile must be consciously indicated. In private something flowing across the computer screen might cause a participant to spontaneously smile, but a conscious choice must be made to type it out; a participant might frown at the keyboard and but [sic] strategically decide to type a smile."

Although no research could be found to show if or how emoticons affect the readers of a message, Witmer and Katzman (1997, on-line) examined gender differences in the use of emoticons. Witmer and Katzman borrow from Kinsey (cited in Witmer and Katzman, 1997) and refer to the use of such symbols as "graphic accents," or Gas. In a content analysis of roughly 3000 messages, Witmer and Katzman found that women use Gas significantly more than men. If one is to acccept the use of a graphic accent as an attempted nonverbal usage, and therefore and attempt at an open affect display, these findings support classic structures of gender communication (Quina, Wingard, and Bates, 1987; Tannen, 1990).

B. Research Model

There is a great emphasis on the organizational functions of electronic mail (e.g. Ang and Cummings, 1984; Lee, 1994; Mehta and Sivadas, 1995; Sproull, 1986). There is also an increased focus on the presence of emoticons (Sanderson, 1993; Godin, 1993). Witmer and Katzman (1997) examined who is using emoticons. However, there is no research that shows what effect an emoticon has on the reader of an emoticon laden message.

The purpose of this study is to determine the effects, if any, of emoticons on the cognitive and affective state of email readers. In other words, does the presence of an emoticon enhance a receiver’s correctly decoding a source’s intended meaning? An affective response, for the purpose of this study, is the amount of emotion the message is perceived to contain. The use of an emoticon may influence the amount or types of perceived emotion in the message, similar to the affect of pictures included with text-based information (Mitchell, 1986). To the extent emoticons arouse emotional reactions in email receivers, the following hypothesis is predicted:

However, it can be argued that creative verbal expression may serve some of the same functions as emoticons. People have been displaying emotion without the use of graphic accents in writing since the beginning of written history. Are there differences between the type of effect that emoticons have on a reader, and explicit written emotional displays have on a reader. The recent emphasis on emoticons leads me to believe there is a difference. Thus it is predicted:

Also, does the emoticon serve a function in recall? Some research suggests that pictures have a greater impact on recall than do words alone (e.g. Shepard, 1967; Lutz and Lutz, 1977). Does the presence of an emoticon allow for greater recall of the contents of the message than the same message with no emoticon. If an emoticon enhances the message in a manner that leads to greater perceived affect, the presence of an emoticon may also serve to help readers recall relevant information. Thus, it is predicted:

A. Experimental Design

A 2 (emoticon: present vs. absent) x 2 (verbal message: present vs. absent) x 2 (latency of recall: immediate vs. delayed) completely crossed factorial design were used to test the hypotheses.

B.Sample

Undergraduate students from an introductory communication class at the State University of New York at Buffalo were asked to participate in order to partially fulfill a course research requirement. The sample consisted of 120 participants (53 males, 67 females). All analytical procedures include 120 participants, unless otherwise stated.

C. Procedure

Students were asked to sign up for an "Electronic Mail Study." Upon arriving at the research site, students were led into a room and seated in front of a computer, with the computer screen facing away from the student.

The student was then told the purpose of the study (Appendix A). All students were given the same initial instructions. The purpose of the study is two-fold: first, to measure if the presence of an emoticon in an electronic mail message had any influence on the perceived level of sarcasm in the message. Second, to see if the use or presence of an emoticon in an electronic mail message will have an effect on the ability to recall relevant information after a delay. The delay consisted of performing an abstract problem solving task. The abstract problem solving task was to name as many of the 50 states in the United States of America as possible in three minutes. After reading the prebriefing statement, the students were asked to sign a consent form (Appendix B).

D. Subject Manipulation

Participants were randomly assigned one experimental condition. Participants received a standardized prebriefing explaining that the purpose of the study was to examine how different readers responded to different email messages. After signing the consent form, participants were given further instructions (Appendix C). A research assistant (RA) turned the computer screen toward the participant to reveal the email message. Participants participated individually. At this point, the emoticon manipulation was introduced.

Emoticon. Participants were shown the electronic mail message featuring the emoticon, or graphic accent (Appendix D).

No emoticon. Participants were shown the electronic mail message with no emoticon, or graphic accent, present (Appendix E).

Also at this point, the verbal message manipulation was introduced.

Emotional verbal message. Participants were shown the emotional electonic mail message featuring an explicit verbal message indicating emotion.

Nonemotional verbal message. Participants were shown the electronic mail message with no explicit verbal message indicating emotion.

After the student read the electronic mail message, and stated that they were through reading the message, the computer screen was again turned away from the participant and the participant was given a questionnaire to assess the emotional impact and recall of the email message. At this point, the recall manipulation was introduced.

Latency recall - Immediate. Participants were given a questionnaire (Appendix F) and asked to complete it. They were told to notify the experimenter when through.

Latency recall - Delayed. Prior to completing the questionnaire, participants were asked to list as many of the 50 states in the United States of America in 3 minutes (Srull and Wyer, 1983). After the 3 minutes, the 50 state list was taken away and the subject was given the questionnaire.

E. Dependent Measures

Subjects were asked to rate the level of humor, sarcasm, anxiety, and urgency present in the message on a scale of 1-100, where "1" indicates an absolute absense of emotion, and 100 indicates the emotion is communicated completely in the message. Subjects were given Likert-type scale questions, with a range of 1-7, to rate how easy it is to read the message, the level of seriousness in the message, the level of happiness in the writer of the message, and the level of honesty present in the message.

Subjects were asked to recall two important data pieces from the message. In the message, subjects were presented the name of a college class and the name of a movie. Subjects were asked to recall the name of the movie and the name of the class.

F. The variables are operationally defined as follows:

G. Debriefing

After the participants completed the questionnaire, they were debriefed regarding the purpose of the experiment. Participants were given a debriefing statement that explains the overall goal of the study. Participants were given the researcher’s name and electronic mail address if they wanted more information on the study at a later date. After reading the debriefing statement and addressing participants’ concerns, participants were thanked for their time and dismissed.

Hypotheses 1 and 2 dealt with potential affective difference brought about by the presence or lack of emoticons. To test these hypotheses, subjects were given a questionnaire with self report ratings for a variety of affective conditions. Those were humor, sarcasm, urgency, anxiety, seriousness, happiness, and honesty. A reliability test was performed on these questions, and humor and sarcasm were found to be reliable, Alpha = .779. Thus, the questions dealing with humor and sarcasm were combined to form a new variable, affect.

Both hypotheses 1 and 2 predicted that the presence of an emoticon in an email message would result in greater or different affective appraisal for the reader than would a message with no emoticon. This was not found to be true. A MANOVA was performed on affect with no interactions found, and no main effects in the emoticon or latency conditions. However, there were significant findings in the verbal condition for affect (M = 68.88, s = 49.11), F (1, 112) = 13.38, p < .001.

Thus, there were no differences in the affective appraisal of readers of email messages based on the presence or absence of emoticons.

Hypothesis 3 dealt with the information processing aspect of emoticons, and predicted that emoticons would facilitate the recall of information. To test Hypothesis 3, two log-linear analyses were performed, one with recall of the movie as the dependent variable and one with recall of the class as the dependent variable. Table XXX shows the goodness-of-fit for the various log-linear models.

Note: M = Movie; E = Emoticon; V = Explicit Verbal Message; L = Latency

As can be seen, in Models 1 through 3 there is a significant difference between observed and expected cellfrequencies. Thus Model 4, which includes the effects of emoticon, verbal condition, and latency, is the most parsimonious model fitting the data. Since neither Models 2 nor 3 fit,however, this finding tentatively suggests that only latency has a significant effect on movie recall. This conclusion is born out by Table XXX, which shows chi-square differences (improvements in fit) when moving from one model to the next. As can be seen, the improvement due to the effect of latency on recall is highly significant.

Note: * Indicates value is significant at the p < .001 level

There were no other significant findings, thus there was no difference in readers ability to recall information based the presense or absense of emoticons.

A potential mitigating factor in the subjects perception of emoticons and how they impact mail may be the subjects degree of familiarity or expertise using on line forms of communication. Subjects were asked how many email messages they send and receive each week, and these two number were combined to form a new variable, total email. Total email was then used with affect in an ANCOVA in an attempt to test whether "expertise" or experience with email would have an impact on subject’s affective responses. No significant results were found with respect to emoticon, F (1, 112) = .21, p = .646. Therefore, there was no difference in affective ratings based on the presence or absence of an emoticon with respect to the subject’s exposure to email.

However, another way to measure subjects comfort and familiarity with on line forms of communication could be by whether or not they have a personal World Wide Web site. Using that variable to test for differences, another ANCOVA was performed, yet still no significant results were found with respect to emoticon, F (1, 111) = .07, p = .790. Thus, whether or not the subject had a World Wide Web site had no impact on affective ratings based on the presence or absence of an emoticon.

To test this hypothesis, a loglinear analysis was performed. It was found that the significant factor in information recall was the latency of recall. In recalling data point one, the name of the movie, x² = 7.60, p < .001. In recalling data point two, latency was also significant, x² = 6.04, p < .001.

Discussion

This paper investigated the potential influences that emoticons have on readers of email messages. The results yielded surprising and somewhat unexpected results with regard to the impact that emoticons did, or did not, have. While not significant, mean scores for sarcasm (M = 31.63) and humor (M = 26.07) were actually higher in the control condition than in the emoticon only condition; sarcasm (M = 26.50), humor (M = 22.00). The growth of email systems, and the increased use of emoticons as a supplementary form of communication in text based messages, is a phenomena that needs to be explained. The growth of the emoticon vocabulary is at such a point that it would seem there must be a reason for it, and for their use. This paper found no such evidence, but may be a starting point for future research into this phenomena.

Email messages containing emoticons did not generate greater emotional response than did those without emoticons. There are several possible explanations for this. First and foremost, the emoticon may not exist to serve this function. While writers of email seem to use the emoticon in situations in which they are trying to display a certain degree of humor, or sarcasm, or some other emotion, the true depth of these emotions may lay in the words of the message, and not in the tag that the emoticon places on that particular message. This argument is supported in this study. The emotional verbal message had a far greater impact on the reader than did any other factor. It can argued, in fact, that the emoticon served to confuse the reader of the message. This is consistent with findings rooted in deception research, in which the lie detectors have more success focusing on verbal as opposed to nonverbal cues (Feeley and deTurck, 1985; Depaulo and Kirkendol, 1989).

Another possibility is that the emoticon served to temper the message, thus the reader perceived it as less sarcastic or humorous due to the emoticon tagging that message as one that is supposed to contain one of those emotions. This is akin to somebody saying, "I am going to play a prank on you now!" and then proceeding to play the prank. The reaction is going to be less from the expectant victim than it would from the unknowing victim. Perhaps the emoticon is serving the same purpose. The levels of affective response are down because the emoticon erases any question, or novelty, of the emoticon filled message. If this were the case, the emoticon is serving to clarify the purpose of the message rather than adding to it. This is supported by the mean scores in the latency/delayed condition for the verbal only condition, and the emoticon/verbal condition. In the emotional verbal condition only, mean scores for sarcasm (M = 45.37) and humor (M = 37.43) were higher than in the verbal/emoticon condition (Humor, M = 38.40; Sarcasm, M = 35.53). Where as it is hypothesized that the emoticon would increase affective response, here they actually served to decrease the affective response. These findings are consistent with the above explanation, that emoticons may serve to tag a message as emotional, thus leaving the reader with no doubt that the message is supposed to contain emotion and decreasing cognitive and affective arousal.

Yet another possible reason for these findings is that the emoticon is now over-used, and the impact that it is supposed to have has been diminished. Perhaps it is such commonplace now that the reader ignores the emoticon all together, and even greater emphasis is placed on the written content of the message itself. Again, this explanation would be consistent with the above findings. Sarcasm (M = 31.63) and humor (M = 26.07) ratings were higher in the control group than in the emoticon only condition (sarcasm, M = 26.50; humor, M = 22.00). Thus, the content of the message alone elicited more of an affective response than did the message with the emoticon. Perhaps this indicates that readers paid extra notice to the message alone, which was enough for them to elicit an affective response.

Email messages with emoticons did not generate significantly different affective responses than did messages without emoticons. The most likely reason is the same as stated above, the emoticon may serve the function of complimenting verbal messages, not existing as something different. The emoticon may serve to clarify the purpose of the message (see the argument presented under Hypothesis 1). In the context of generating different types of affective arousal the emoticon may be useless without supporting verbal content. Thus, the emoticon is unable to generate any different types of response due to the contextual enhancement function that it serves. An emoticon may only be as good as the accompanying message, thus enhancing affective arousal but not generating different affective arousal.

Email messages with emoticons did not allow for easier recall of information than did messages without emoticons. The influencing factor for recall of information was the latency condition, which could be predicted (Srull and Wyer, 1983). The 50 state cognitive filler task served to clear the cognitive workspace, and force participants to recall information from long term memory. Therefore, this hypothesis actually tests whether or not emoticons trigger a mechanism for storing information in long term memory. There was no such differentiated storage, and there are a number of possible reasons why.

First, emoticons may impact affective arousal but serve no function for cognitive arousal. In other words, while emoticons may trigger happiness, sadness, or other emotions, they are not directly tied into information processing. This is consistent with other information processing literature (i.e. deTurck and Goldhaber, 1989) in which those that were asked to memorize information were able to recall more of that information than those that were asked to form an impression (affective judgment) of the same information. In this current study, no information processing objective (IPO) was given, but the self-report questionnaire asked all of the affective rating questions before asking the recall, or memorization, questions. Perhaps this put the subject in an "impression" or affective state of mind. If this were the case, these results would be consistent with the deTurck and Goldhaber findings. The entire experimental group was somewhat led to an impression forming IPO, which may have decreased the ability to recall information.

This argument is supported by the emotional verbal condition also having no impact on participant’s ability to recall information. The emotional verbal condition would also serve as an affective indicator, which would again be comparable to impression set formation in the IPO literature. The emotional verbal condition had an impact on all other facets of this study, but did not assist in recall of information. This also supports the above arguments that the emotional verbal message and the emoticon serve as compliments to each other, and not something different. If the emotional verbal message was different than the emoticon in basic functioning, it may have had an impact on recall of information – it did not.

Several limitation exist in the current study that should be identified. First, the current study examined perceptions of email, but it was not a true email message. While participants were told to, "Read this email message as if it were written to you by a friend," it was indeed not written by a friend. Participants were not in the same state of mind that they would have been had the email been from a close friend. Information may have been more poignant in a letter from a friend, and arousal may have been greater. Participants reading messages from a true friend may have had higher vested interest in the message, and thus had greater cognitive and affective arousal (deTurck and Goldhaber, 1989).

Another procedural limitation of the current study was the scenario used to manipulate the participants. Participants were led into a room that did not serve as a normal computer site, and were seated in front of a computer that they would not normally use to send and receive email. Local computer facilities generally use traditional desktop machines, and the experimental machine was a dated laptop computer. This change of modality may have been distracting.

Another possible limitation of the study may have been with the participants themselves. On several occasions during the experiment, participants asked the RA for definition of one or more of the terms. For example, a subject may have asked, "What is sarcasm?" A Websters Dictionary definition was given for each of the terms in situations where explanations were asked for, but there is no guarantee that the participant did indeed understand all of the questions they were being asked.

The study also could have used a different self-report questionnaire which would have included more measurement points for affect and recall ratings. A series of eight to ten recall questions and ten to twenty affective rating questions may have yielded different results. The current study did not use that many questions to avoid having to use an email message stimulus that was unrealistic. However, perhaps using more questions and a different stimulus might generate significantly different findings.

Lastly, message exposure in the current study may have been too brief. Although subjects were told to take as much time as they wanted, reading an email message with somebody else in the room waiting for you may have resulted in subjects rushing through the message more so than if they were in private. As a result, affective perception formation may have been limited and based on insufficient information.

Future research efforts that would spawn from this study are many. This study is the first attempt at empirically examining the effects that emoticons have on readers of email messages. There have been a number of ethnographic studies (i.e. Marvin, 1995; Danet et. al., 1997; Witmer and Katzman, 1997) but this is the first in what hopes to be a series of empirical studies to explain this phenomena.

Research needs to be done more fully to explain what impact emoticons have on readers of email messages. Specifically, does the emoticon serve to generate a greater degree of affect. Future studies should focus on "real life" email and not messages generated in a laboratory setting. By being able to test emotional response on everyday email messages, perhaps the main confound of the current study would be eliminated.

Another avenue worth investigating is the area of emoticon generation. This study focused on the receiver of the message, but perhaps by focusing on the writer’s motives for generating an emoticon compared to the reader’s response, we can get a more accurate idea of their functioning.

Also, just testing to see how people perceive emoticons may be useful. This study took for granted that readers of email would have been exposed to the emoticon at some point. However, no measurement was taken to see if the participants knew what an emoticon was. Research which clarifies the true general perception of emoticons and their meaning and use might prove beneficial.

Danet, B., Ruedenberg-Wright, L., & Rosenbaum-Tamari, Yehudit. (1997).

DePaulo, & Kirkendol (1989) NEED REST OF REFERENCE

deTurck, M., & Goldhaber, G. M. (1989) NEED REST OF REFERENCE

Godin, S. (1993). The smiley dictionary. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press

Marvin, L. E. (1995). Spoof, spam, lurk and lag: The aesthetics of

Pollack, A. (1982, May 27). Technology: conference by computer. New York Times, D2.

Sanderson, D. (1993). Smileys. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly & Associates, Inc.

Tannen, D. (1990). You just don’t understand. New York: Ballantine.

Witmer, D., & Katzman, S. (1997). On-line smiles: Does gender make a

Appendix A

Hello, and thank you for agreeing to participate in this study. Today, we are looking at certain aspects of electronic mail messages. Please understand that this study is completely voluntary. The study involves reading an electronic mail message from a computer screen. If there are any health reasons that you can not read a computer screen, or at any time during the study you become uncomfortable with the study, notify me and the study will stop. You will still receive one-half hour of research credit.

Are there any questions?

Appendix B

I ________________________________________ agree to participate in this study, and agree to allow the researcher to use my results for analysis. I understand that my participation is completely voluntary. I also understand that my individual results will remain anonymous, and that I can stop the study at any point for any reason. I further understand that I am going to have to look at a computer screen, and I have no known health limitation which would prevent me from doing this.

Signature ___________________________________________________

Date _____________________________

Appendix C

You are going to be asked to read an electronic mail message which has been randomly selected, downloaded and stored in Microsoft Word format. The writer and recipient of the message are going to remain anonymous. Please read this message as if it were written to you by one of your friends. You will have as much time to read the message as you would like. When you are through reading the message, please notify me.

Are you ready to begin?

When the subject has notified the interviewer that they are through reading the message:

Please fill out this questionnaire, and turn it over in front of you when you are through.

When the subject has notified the interviewer that they are through reading the message:

You are now going to be given 3 minutes to write down as many of the 50 states as you can.

Are you ready to begin?

When the three minutes are over:

Now, please fill out this questionnaire, and turn it over in front of you when you are through.

Appendix D

Hey, what’s up?

What are your plans for the weekend? I was supposed to go watch a movie, High Anxiety, at a friend’s but don’t think I am going to be able to go. I have too much work to do for Ancient History class. It is a neat class, but you wouldn’t think that it would be so much work, but it is. I am really lucky to have taken it. ;-)

Well, I hope your weekend is great. I will talk to you Monday to see how it went.

See you later.

-Me

Appndix E

Hey, what’s up?

What are your plans for the weekend? I was supposed to go watch a movie, High Anxiety, at a friend’s but don’t think I am going to be able to go. I have too much work to do for Ancient History class. It is a neat class, but you wouldn’t think that it would be so much work, but it is. I am really lucky to have taken it.

Well, I hope your weekend is great. I will talk to you Monday to see how it went.

See you later.

-Me

Appendix F

1. Name____________________________________________________

2. Gender: (Circle one) Male Female

3. Age: __________________________

4. Roughly, how many electronic mail messages do you read each week? ____________

5. Roughly, how many electronic mail messages do you send each week? ____________

6. On a scale from 1-100, with 1 being the least and 100 being the most, how much ANXIETY did the writer of the message portray? _____________

7. On a scale from 1-100, with 1 being the least and 100 being the most, how SARCASTIC would you rate the email message you just read? ____________

8. On a scale from 1-100, with 1 being the least and 100 being the most, how much URGENCY did the writer of the message portray? ____________

9. On a scale from 1-100, with 1 being the least and 100 being the most, how HUMOROUS would you rate the email message you just read? ____________

10. On the scale below, rate how easy it was to read the message?

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Very Easy Very Difficult

11. On the scale below, rate the seriousness of the message:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Not Serious Very Serious

12. On the scale below, rate how happy the writeer of the message was:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Not Happy Very Happy

13. On the scale below, rate the level of honesty in the message:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Not Honest Very Honest

12. Do you have your own web site? Yes No

13. If no, would you like to eventually have one? Yes No

14. What movie was the writer of the message hoping to go see this weekend?

____________________________________

15. What class was the writer of the message studying for this weekend?

____________________________________

16. Would you respond to this email message, if it were sent to you by a friend?

Yes No

Appendix G

Thank you for participating in today’s study. We are interested in examining how readers respond to different electronic mail messages. You responses will be kept confidential, and if you have any further questions or concerns about the study, you can email the researcher at:

Kyle D’Addario - daddario@acsu.buffalo.edu

Please do not discuss this study with anybody else, as data is still being collected. Any information you give somebody may jeopardize the validity of the study.

Thank you again for your time.

If you are interested in further information on this topic, below is some suggested reading:

Godin, S. (1993). The smiley dictionary. Berkeley, CA: Peachpit Press

Marvin, L. E. (1995). Spoof, spam, lurk and lag: The aesthetics of

Sanderson, D. (1993). Smileys. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly & Associates, Inc.