Why are smiley face symbols so popular? In today’s world, where a large chunk of communication is being carried out through a digital medium, reading another persons emotions is not so simple. Psychologists state that 90% of communication between humans is non-verbal. Non-verbal communication is composed of gestures, facial expressions, distance between communicators, hand signals and everything that we notice that is not verbally communicated. For instance, when a career counselor gives advice on how to prepare for a successful interview, they may tell you to have a solid resume and get good references. What they will also tell you is that you must dress well, sit straight (not slouch), speak confidently, smile, make good eye contact, firm handshake etc. These are things which play an important aspect as to how you are perceived. Since 90% of communication is non-verbal, visual symbols such as smiley faces and emoticons have evolved to fulfill the void in traditional digital communication.

For instance, I could say “that’s a great dress” and be completely sarcastic, or really mean it. If one were to type it, it would be the exact same way. The question is then how is the person on the opposite side supposed to perceive the comment. This was the nature of early cyber conversations, full of misunderstood conversations. It the very reason why smileys are so rampant and popular in today’s cyber communication. To ensure that the other person knows what is being said – to give a sense of perception. Now, with the use of smiley faces, one could say “shut up : )” or “shut up! : (”. You can see how the two statements are completely opposite, yet without the smileys, hard to perceive what is being said.

The psychology of smileys goes even deeper. The use of which smiley is being used is extremely deep. For instance, there are more than a hundred happy smiley face symbols that could be utilized by an author of a cyber conversation. However, the one that they select has a, for them, the best illustration of what they are trying to express. Why then is one smiley face better than the other? And in a similar situation, would the same smiley face be selected by different authors. The questions to these answers are currently being sought by psychologists but definitely gives us something to think about the next time we choose to place a smiley face or emoticon in our web conversations.