Today emoticons are so pervasive that behavioral science has taken an active interest in how people use them. Among the evidence (recently surveyed by Roni Jacobson at the great new Science of Us blog ...

The emoticon is old. Or, young, 30 years young! Either way, it's a bona fide grown-up symbol now, with the life experience under its lack of a belt (for it has no waist) to prove it. But it has ...

With three simple keystrokes, Scott Fahlman brought a smile to the internet. In a 1982 message board post, Fahlman, a computer scientist at Carnegie-Mellon University, proposed using typographical ...

Jason Cipriani is based out of beautiful Colorado and has been covering mobile technology news and reviewing the latest gadgets for the last six years. His work can also be found on sister site CNET ...

Emotion is something that is incredibly difficult to get across in a digital format. Aside from ending your texts with “lol” to appear less threatening, or ending a tweet with “/s” to indicate sarcasm ...

With communication moving at the speed of light, it makes sense that you'd want to take the quickest path possible to inform your employees of your emotions. Doing this via text message requires just ...

Pro tip: Keep the smiley faces out of your work emails, or else the person receiving the message may think you’re incompetent. That’s according to a study published in “Social Psychological and ...

In the early days of the internet, computer scientist Scott Fahlman ran into a problem on Carnegie Mellon University’s online bulletin boards. People used the bulletin boards — a kind of primitive ...

In many social situations, smiling can smooth interactions. People who smile are seen as more attractive, honest, and warm. 1 Smilers are also seen as more competent, suggesting that putting on a ...