Facebook users can now include emoticons in their comments after a minor update took place last week. Facebook users have been able to add a variety of smileys when using the chat function in Facebook but they can now use those same smiley faces when they post a comment. For some reason they have not introduced the feature into original posts and it is only Facebook comments that have the facility.

Emoticons were first introduced 30 years ago as a way to help convey the meaning of an email. How many times have you received an email or text message and read a meaning into it that the author never intended? I know I have done on many occasions, so much so that I only ever send SMS messages as a last resort. I know of many people who have fallen out with friends because of an innocuous comment that was taken the wrong way. I hasten to add that they are all friends again once the misunderstanding has come to light.

Emoticons can also be a timesaver. Rather than writing a lot of text to express how happy, or unhappy, you are it is easier to just use two characters, a colon and a closed bracket to convey that meaning. Over time emoticons developed from just a happy or sad face to a whole plethora of smileys that can now convey pretty much any emotion that you can think of and quite a few that you hadn’t thought of!

As I was writing this article I have noticed that one of the smileys does work in status updates and that is the heart smiley made up of “<3”. If you look at the graphic I have uploaded at the bottom of this article you can see the keystrokes on the left and the corresponding smiley on the right. I did this using a status update and a follow up comment. However the heart smiley appears in both the comments and original status, albeit it has a different format depending upon whether it is in the Facebook status or comment. Not being one who often puts a heart shaped smiley in a post I cannot say how long this feature has been available but I am sure one of you can let me know in a comment.

For those that use smileys a lot in day to day life I am sure that being able to add them to the Facebook comments will prove popular. Enabling emoticons in comments will not make Facebook any better or worse in real terms but it is a neat little feature for those that are interested, but do you think it helps to make social media more social?