The term "emoticon" is derived by combining the words "emotion" and "icon". You have, undoubtedly, seen character strings like [-(and ^. - In email, chat, and SMS. The emoticon has become immensely popular, and is widely used in informal communication to convey tone and emotion.

This article provides an outline on the history and development of emoticons and a few tips on their use.

History Of The Emoticon

The origin of the use of symbols to convey emotions with writing are not clear. Their use on the internet, though, is believed to have started in the 1970s. The first documented suggestion for use of two of the most widely used emoticons, :-) and :-( , can be traced to a BBS of Carnegie Mellon University in 1982.

Its use spread rapidly, and the by the time the Internet was founded in 1983, it was already widely used across the military ARPANET and civilian Usenets. Pretty soon, some programs had the ability to recognize emoticon strings, and would even superimpose or position characters to make them look better.

These were precursors of the present day graphical emoticons. Graphical image emotes became widespread with the rise in popularity of instant messenger programs, like the famous ICQ emoticon bunch. Messenger clients enable users to type in a simple character string, which is then automatically rendered as an image. The static ASCII characters have now been replaced by fancy images which are often animated, and even play sounds.

Emoticon Use Today - Nice Or Nuisance?

Most messengers, now, have lists of complex character combinations to produce hundreds of emotes. However, the use of multimedia has led to the development of icons that does not represent faces or emotions of any sort. Coffee cups, guitars, and furniture are just a few examples of such icons, where the original intention of emoting has been sidelined.

With increasingly complex icons being developed, it was only inevitable that independent emoticon download packs were introduced. These packs contained hundreds of icons that the users could choose, from extensive menus. Often, the recipient would just receive a download emoticon prompt, if s/he did not have the same pack installed.

Several virus and spyware writers capitalized on the opportunity and bundled dangerous malware with downloads. They, then, aggressively marketed the emoticon free downloads to lure users into their traps. Some insidious publishers even got unwitting users to install emoticon adult content - icons that would depict sex acts instead of the normal innocent smileys or faces.

Tips For Use

Given the background, it is not surprising that a lot of people consider emotes a nuisance. Pointers below tell you when it is safe and when it is not:

• Don't use them in formal situations, especially online interviews - that is considered unprofessional.

• Use in semi-formal email may be okay, but only if you know that the other person would not mind, or if they use it themselves.

• Even in informal situations, be cautious - the other person's program may render your code differently, potentially causing embarrassment.

• Web-based chat applications like on social networking sites, are safe for informal use. They have limited icons and usually never anything offensive.

In addition, be careful about downloading free emotes, since many of them typically have harmful viruses and spyware that could steal sensitive personal information from your computer.