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Smileys and emoticons are used in written forms of communication to describe a particular emotion or mood that is within the message that is sent. They consist of eyes formed by colons (or semicolons to show winking) and mouths formed by various letters or symbols ranging from a D to symbolize a large smile or a left hand parentheses to express sadness. Here are several example: : ( ; ) : D.

While smileys are made purely of text characters, emoticons are little yellow faces that can be loaded from smileyCentral. Both display emotions to enhance the message of the text.

The acceptance of the smileys for informal and written messages are largely due to the abundance of communications by text messages, message boards and instant messaging (IM).

With the increasing use of the internet and wireless digital telecommunications, the adoption of the smileys has taken prominence. This movement was initiated by the youth and there is probably not a young person out there who does not know the meaning or usage of smileys.

The emotions displayed have evolved from just happiness and sadness to disbelief, anger, playfulness and surprise.

Females use the emoticons much more often than males. This may be due to feeling more comfortable in expressing emotions or they may be more versed in using telecommunication nuance techniques.

Some have criticized the use of these symbols as detrimental to the depth of human communication, but these don’t address the obvious benefits of use. These benefits include faster communication, the allowance of intimate text messages with little effort.

Use of emoticons has hit a plateau as all the smiley text combinations have been discovered. The future or more nuanced symbols lies in message forums that have longer text messages with new symbols required to display the range of emotions expressed.