Deep Thoughts by Mark - Smileys Deep Thoughts on Smileys Ahhhhh... smilies. Invaluable for conveying emotions, real or perceived over the emotionless medium of plain text.
I think that the basic happy face smiley can be classified into three categories (we'll ignore the more esoteric ones for now...):
:)
=)
:-)
In other words, round eyes, long eyes, and round eyes with nose. So do they really tell anything about a person?
Cool. =) I think that people that use =) are *generally* more outgoing than those that use :) This is generalizing of course, and in fact, some people I know that are on the upper extreme of the extroversion scale use :), and this is nothing negative towards them.
My opinion though is since email smileys are typical reflection of one's written smileys, and the strokes used to write =) are much more flourishing and involve more movement of the pen than the strokes used to write :) (you have to make the dots carefully, etc)
=) downstroke, downstroke, curve
:) dot, dot, curve
just visualize it - the movements of the =) are much more lively and dynamic than the :)
On that note, people who include noses in their smilies, like :-) I think are more meticulous and organized. These smilies are three characters in length.
Imagine it. It's three charcters, located (on a stadard QWERTY keyboard) so taht you have to do a finger-twisting sequence to type it out, and you have to press/release the shift key twice. For me, that would really slow down my typing, which usually moves along at a respectable clip. So people who would actually take the time to ensure those three characters are typed correctly probably show that characteristic in the other areas of their lives. Hmm....
Deep thought of 23:15, September 23, 1996