Emoticons

by Charlotte Hoffmann

I think that smileys are very important to show your feelings and emotions and if you don't know how to explain it. If you use a smiley your writing partner will exactly know your facial expression. But if you use the wrong smiley there could be many misunderstandings between the both conversation partners.
I sure that smileys make a chat more personally. A text with a lot of smileys will look more colourful and funnier. There were a lot of different smileys which show different feelings as sadness, happiness, confusion, surprise, depression and so on. Using smileys make it easier to show your feelings and your partner will understand you without a declaration.

Smilies

By Marlena Baran

If you want to express your emotions in the Internet and you don't find any words for it, you can use Smileys, also called Emoticons.
You can use Emoticons with sad, angry or happy expressions for instance. The most famous Smiley is: :-)
It's an important method to communicate easier with the partner, because you can understand ambiguous word phrases.
Smileys are used in several programmes, like ICQ, MSN Messenger or Instant Messenger.
Nowadays there are hundreds of different Smileys, like Japenese ones. Smileys were invented on 19th September 1982 by the student Scott E. Fahlman. Emoticons/Smileys are also useful for short messages on mobile telephones.
All in all Smileys are a great invention!

Smileys

by ??

I think smileys are very helpful, because when you don't know what you should write, you can make one of the smileys. Smileys also make more emotions. Smileys are often used in emails, chats and boards. On September 1982, Scott Fahlmann (now he is a Scientist in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University) invented the smileys. Smileys make the text more funny and personally. The program PLATO IV was the first program that use smileys. Here is an example:

confident/happy :-)>

Smileys

by Annika Cremer

I think smile's are very useful, if you want to show your feelings and don't know how you should write it. They are also very practically to write a text, which is more personally and funnier. For example you would become rather write a bad looking smiley if you are angry, as you would say it. And if you write an email, there are more smileys for emotions than words, because it is easier to show your feelings with pictures or smileys than describe it in words.

The (non)sense of emoticons

Why are emoticons important?
That's a fact: communication either textual or verbal is not only to share information. In many cases emotional aspects are transported too. It is important to distinguish formal information and personal news.

• Informing a hotel about the flight connection (date of fligth, company and fligt number) you will use will not legitimate any emoticon.
• Writing your boy or girl friend you will pack a lot of emotions into your message - in that case the use of emoticons may be usefull

In some forums we se an inflation of emoticons "decorating" single messages. I think that a good eye leads you to a sensfull middle course.