🙂 – This is a face that you would see almost everywhere these days – on all your screens including the laptop screen and your mobile screen. All conversations in the digital world are full of emotions because smileys like these :), ; ), : P, et al. have added life and given a face to the textual content online.
Researchers have found that over 50% of human interaction and understanding when two people meet face-to-face happens with non-verbal cues. These cues may include innate facial expressions, tone of voice and body language. But when we are communicating online where we cannot have a face to face rendezvous with one another, we have to rely only on verbal means. But who says that we cannot express ‘facial emotions’ online? The only tool that we have at our disposal is a QWERTY keypad/ keyboard with alphanumeric characters and also a lot of special characters like “!@#$%^&*()_+<>?:”{}[];’,./”. With such a powerful toolkit, we can create magic. Gestalt theory can be applied to these special characters because the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. A semi-colon “;” and a bracket “)” may be just punctuation marks. But when they are brought together they create “NAUGHTINESS”! 😉
But why am I discussing about the magical properties of punctuation marks? Being a researcher, I feel intrigued by the smallest of things that form an integral part of our lives. Being a “Millennial” and growing up in front of the FaceBook Homepage, I have realised that smileys have become a part of my digital tongue. My fingers subconsciously press the keys “:” and “)” after every sentence I type on any social networking site. It has become plain habit. Furthermore, it is addictive and contagious.
“Most of the smileys that I type are an answer to the smiley typed by other person in the chat. For example, when someone gives a smiley as a reply to one of my chats, it’s almost a reflex action to send a smiley back.”
I was a ‘virtual’ presenter at the recently held BIG Conference in the ‘Millennials Talk’. We had a section in our presentation that talked about how would the millennials conduct market research in the future. Market researchers of today are using social media to communicate with each other and to share knowledge. The entire industry is getting more closely bonded with each other because smileys, when used while chatting online, act as a brilliant ice-breaker! It instantly creates a feeling of warmth and friendliness in the easiest possible way. We have been using smileys while chatting with our friends, on all casual and friendly occasions. But why do we hesitate to use a smiley during a business related chat/ email with a client or vendor? But the times are changing. Social media is enabling business professionals to get rid of the “serious” façade and become friendlier with their business network online. A simple smiley makes us feel like we are talking to a ‘human’, and not a machine. 🙂
It is not just about researchers using smileys. It is also about consumers across the globe using smileys while having conversations about brands. Textual analysis of online conversational data has become quite popular. Tools help to ascertain the polarity of the consumer opinion towards a brand – whether it is positive or negative – a smile 🙂 or a frown :(! Smileys are very important chunks of data for analysing consumers’ attitudes and sentiments. But yet, we must be careful about what a smiley signifies based on the context.
If a consumer says – “I love this brand but my mom does not allow me to buy it :(”, will the negative smiley be counted as a negative sentiment towards the brand? In this case, it is a strong desire for the brand that is making the consumer feel sad.
Understanding the dynamics of smileys becomes more important when our consumer audiences are millennials themselves. We need to understand their motive behind using smileys. It may not be just a signifier of happiness or sadness. There are many other emotions involved. One characteristic trait of millennial youth is the frequent use of sarcastic humor while pulling the leg of their friends. And tongue-in-cheek smileys like ”:P” come in handy to make fun of someone and get away with it! In contradiction to our belief, people also use smileys to hide their true emotions! So are we measuring the sentiment of smileys in an opposite direction? Let’s take a closer look at what the millenials who smile/ frown very often online have to say …
“I’ll use a wink occasionally, but only to ensure that the reader knows I’m being sarcastic. The problem with emails is that you can’t gauge tone of voice making some sarcastic comments seem rude or stupid.”
“If someone is joking, a 😉 or a 😛 is enough not to let other person feel hurt and enjoy the joke.”
“It adds emotion to the chat, makes the other person feel a little more important.”
“It just makes the message sweeter. :)” “it looks cute”
“Without smilies we would all sound p***ed off with each other.”
“…sending and insulting message to a dear friends MUST be complemented with ” :P, :D, etc.” or it might look rude. It gives me satisfaction that I got a point across without being the bad guy. In short, smileys are a great way to camouflage your true emotions while at the same time getting the same output from your originally intended emotions. :-p”
Smileys are a very powerful tool for online communication and research. But we need to understand their dynamics at a greater depth to analyze them effectively. A person may use a smiley with a particular intention, but the receiver may or may not understand the same intention. Even as researchers, we need to be careful while using and analyzing smileys. But don’t stop using them! They make the conversations sweeter for sure and make the corporate world a better place to live 🙂
Signing off with a cute Japanese Smile (*^_^*)
TANVI GUPTA, Eternal Student and Research Executive at Millward Brown, India. Reach me on twitter @Tanvi_MR
