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.

The difference between the two is that smileys use purely text characters while the second group are pictures of little yellow faces which express the same emotions of the text smiles but without the usage of text based characters. Such little pictures can be had from smileyCentral.

These symbolic expressions have risen to prominence thanks to rise of text messaging, not just on cell phones, but also through instant messaging or message board posts. The key requirement for the acceptance of smileys is that the form of communication is written and informal.

Since the rise of the internet and wireless digital telecommunication these forms of communication have taken prominence and often youth were the first to integrate these forms of communication in their lives. It is rare to find youth today who are ignorant of the usage and meaning of smileys.

The expressions have evolved quiet a bit since the early development of these symbols. At first they only expressed happiness or sadness, but now they can express nuanced emotions like disbelief, anger, playfulness and surprise.

The use of these expressions seems to disproportionately favored by females rather than males. The cause for this may be that females feel more comfortably expressing emotions, or perhaps they are more familiar with nuanced telecommunication 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.

The future of these symbols seems to have plateaued. All expressions possible using text characters seem to have been used up. Emoticons can display a wider range of emotions since they are not limited. The future of more nuanced symbols lies within message forums since their text messages are often longer and more detailed, thus requiring a wider range of symbols.