Smiley Icons: The Past, The Present And The Future

Smiley icons have become something that we see almost every day. However they were not always as cute or as popular as they are now. In fact when they first were used it actually began out of necessity. The first smiley icons were seen over 25 years ago, back when the computer age was just getting started. This new way of communicating through emails had some bugs to work out.

What was happening is when people were communicating through their emails many of the emotions were getting confused and leading to misunderstanding. For example if someone was sending an email and they were being a bit sarcastic it was being mistaken for rudeness. So icons were created to eliminate confusion of the intended comment. They never caught on as a fad until recent years as the youth began to really use computers.

Now you can find a smiley icon incorporated in several programs. For example many email servers offer you the ability to add icons into your email. They usually give you a choice of 15 or so emotions to choose from giving you the ability to not only make your email look better, but it also gives you the ability to communicate exactly what emotions you are feeling about what you are writing.

Other programs such as instant messages also let you choose several icons for your communications. Now you can also find websites that specialize in these icons. They have thousands to choose from and most have them sort by categories. These categorize can include animals, sports, or emotions just to name a few. Most of these icons can be added to your web applications such as blogs, social networks and now you can even download them onto your cell phone so you can attach them to your text messages.

The great thing about these websites is, generally speaking, will give you free downloads. Many of them just want to attach a tracking cookie to your computer and some want you to download a specific tool bar but you are able to download and access as many icons that you want. When they first started, a smiley icon was a simple smiley face. Now they have become more advanced and you can find animated icons. These icons move and make faces adding even more personality to your writings.

They have actually become so popular that you can find them in other places besides on your computer. For example you can find entire lines of tee shirts dedicated to just selling tee shirts with these smiley icons on them. You can also find them on computer accessories like mouse pads. So they are now being marketed even outside of the World Wide Web.

When the first smiley icon was used it was out of necessity to help eliminate communication errors. However they have now grown in popularity and are used in all types of communication on the web including emails, IMs, text messaging, and social networks. You can even find these smiley icons on clothing.