Smiley Icons: Personalizing Your Online Communications

If you get on the Internet much, chances are that you have come across some of the many smiley icons that are in circulation. Smiley icons are one of those things that pertain to the Internet that not everybody understands, but they are an important part of web based communication. Smiley icons are a way of expressing feeling and emotion. While some people don't care about or respond to smiley icons, other people swear by them and rely on them for helping to convey emotions that they never thought they would be in need of.

Email and Smiley Icons

When you are typing an email to a friend, colleague, or even an enemy there are some things that you are never going to be able to get across. The Internet is so impersonal at times, as the person that you are speaking to cannot possibly feel what you are feeling or understand just what you mean, because they are unable to see your face. While smiley icons are not your face, knowing how to use them effectively can make for better understanding, even things as simple as :) or :(. Of course, these faces imply that you are feeling happy or sad at that moment or that you are smiling or frowning—without such emotions, it is more difficult to convey your feelings.

Conveying Emotion on Message Boards and Chat Rooms

Outside of personal and professional emails, smiley icons can often help to facilitate meaningful conversation on message boards, in chat rooms, and other forums for discussion that are based on the web. Again, chat boards like this can be impersonal because most discussions are held face to face. Obviously, with the Internet this is not possible, but using smiley icons can help the people who are reading your messages know just what emotion you are feeling or the emotion that your face would be conveying if you were able to chat face to face.

Learning to Use Smiley Icons

Learning to use smiley icons isn't hard. In all actuality, using emotions effectively is another part of learning the ins and outs of the Internet world, and just how it works. Not everybody is going to know how to go about using them right the first time, so paying attention to how your Internet buddies use icons is a great way to get started. You can also look them up online, and use some new ones or even invent some of your own. Believe it or not, they have emoticons for celebrities these days, too.

Smiley icons are just one of those things that you don't know much about until you start using them for real. Baby steps are all that is asked, and if you aren't comfortable with the emotions there is no Internet rule stating that they have to be used, on emails or message boards or even chat rooms. In the end, it is about learning as you go and learning to replace actual emotions with the Internet version, smiley icons.