Emoticons, or as some people refers as 'smiley', birth forth on the 19 September, 1982, when Scott E. Fahlman, suggested to his university colleagues that 'when they make a joke online, they should put a little sideways smiley face at the end of it'. (Fahlman, 2007) What caused Professor Fahlman with this brilliant little idea, was the communication breakdown over the University's online buletin board. Due to the lack of body language and tone-of-voice cues that we normally use, when using text-based online communication, people have the tendency to interpret a message not as the sender intended.
With this, Professor Fahlman came out with these two little characters.
:-) = just a joke
:-( = should be taken seriously
The idea was to indicate the seriousness of the text-based online communication only. Here is the text posted when the first emoticon appeared online.
Little did he knows that these would evolved, and soon :-) bring the meaning of happy, pleased, while :-( bring the meaning of frustation, angry, and sad. Soon, others emoticons were invented and has become like this...
It is colourful, and more expressive than just plain colon, hyphen and left parenthesis. This has, of course, out of Professor Fahlman's prediction when he invented these. 'It didn't seem like a big deal at the time', said Professor Fahlman.
What does not seems like a big deal to Professor Fahlman, has become something that people relied on heavily, to make communication so much more effective. Emoticons give your recipients an idea of your mood and therefore there are no misconception. (eHow, n.d)
Email has become part of everyone's life. With the convenience of email, we can easily convey our message to anyone regardless of the boundary of space and time.
The Australia government's department of Broadland, Communication and Digital Economy listed out the advantages of email, ending with this, 'Email has changed the way we communicate - how we share our ideas and information. It has, revived the short letter as a means of getting in touch with each other and can also act as an effective advocacy tool, and helo to build online communities'. (The Australia government's department of Broadland, Communication and Digital Economy, 2008)
Funnell (2007) confessed that he has been known of sending out 'angry' email when the email was meant to be 'not angry'. This then, brought in the joint of emoticons and email.
No doubt, email has been good to the society, with the help of emoticons, both would work out to provide a great means of effective communication, as that is what communication is all about -- the recipients get the intended message of the sender. The concept is well collaborated with Kress (2006), stressing on the significance of words and images upon interaction with a composition.
In short, there is no right or wrong in the world of internet. It is only a matter of effectiveness. Thus one should be clear of when and what to do, with the freedom given. Such as not to use emoticon upon writing a formal email, as to show the formality; but to use some emoticon when communication is to the purpose of social.
Hence, enjoy using emoticons to express yourself! :-)
References
1. eHow internet editor, n.d, How to use emoticons in emails, viewed 21 June 2009, at http://www.ehow.com/how_2190722_use-emoticons-emails.html
2. Fahlman, S., 2007, Emoticons & email ettiquette, Media Report, viewed 21 June 2009, at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2064342.htm
3. Fahlman, S., n.d, Smiley Lore, viewed 21 June 2009, at http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/sefSmiley.htm
4. Funnell, A., 2007, Emoticons & email ettiquette, Media Report, viewed 21 June 2009, at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/mediareport/stories/2007/2064342.htm
5. Kress, G. & van Leeuwen, T., 2006, Reading images, Chapter 6: The meaning of composition
6. The Australia government's department of Broadland, Communication and Digital Economy , 2008, The benefits of email, viewed 21 June 2009, at http://www.e-strategyguide.gov.au/make_email_work/benefits_of_email
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