It’s official, Mike Jones Scott Fahlman was the first to suggest the use of the smiley. The jury’s still out on whether to thank him or not. They’re useful when you want to denote humor or sarcasm, but messages can (and do) get misinterpreted in spite of them. I also find myself using them too often in emails. I’ve found that with enough imagination I can almost always find another way to phrase the sentence that doesn’t require using one, but that takes time. I guess my conclusion is that the use of smileys promotes lazy writing. (Thanks scott)