=) =( =P =D xP x) 0.0 T_T @_@ $_$

As I was about to insert my trademark smiley at the end of a sms reply, a thought halted my actions.

"What if..." I thought. "What if..I do not include that piece of smiley? Would it change the mood of the message altogether? Would the recipient misunderstand me as being cold?"

You see, having grown up in the ICQ/SMS/MSN world.. I haven been accustomed to the use of emoticons. Every emoticon inserted would serve as added impact to whatever emotions/feelings we are trying to portray. Sometimes, emoticons are even used to replace words that we want to say. Which I call a form of lazy communication.

For instance, Friend #1 smses and asks "How was your day"?. And you who just had a bad day, hits reply with a lone "=(",  saving u the energy and time of typing a total of 11 letters! ("I had a bad day".)

Just how time saving emoticons are! 

However, time saving and efficient it may be.. I'm beginning to think that emoticons are actually chopping communication into pieces. True enough it saves time.. but it has cause us shortcutters to think less and write less,  fitting all our emotions and expressions into a 0.0 or =/. 

Therefore effective from today (21st April 2009), Wong Wei-I vows to unlock her thinking gates, and try, i repeat try, to use as little emoticons as possible in her daily digital communications, and to express herself with actual proper descriptive sentences. smiles. 

With that, pls do not think I'm being less nice or friendly, if the occasional smiley or whatever face is absent. smiles.