Emoticons can be explained as smileys and "derives from the hybrid of emotion and icons." This is either composed of punctuation characters or of graphical symbols. Because online interactions lack the expressions we generally have  such as facial expressions, body gestures for expressing opinions or ideas. "Emoticons were introduced to fill a void in online communication." (crystal, 2001).

One reason emoticon suggests that females use a language style that reflects "diffidence, shyness and lower self-confidence, indicating a lack of commitment or strong opinion" is because the impact of emoticons and smileys help form impressions of author's disposition or attitude as being : friendlier", more "valuable," etc.

In a study of 3,000 online messages; "females use more graphical accents emotions to express emotion in their discourse than male." (Wot,er & Katzman, 1997), which is another pattern that is said to reflect in adolescent male's tendency to deny their feelings such as sadness. With the study, males rarely used emoticons in conversations with other males but use some with females.

"An examination of online newsgroups finds that women are more apt to express emotions, but males will adapt in mixed-gendered newsgroups and express more." (Wolf, 2000).