Of course, it still doesn’t matter how you punctuate “I plowed your mom last night,” as you’re going to look like a prick no matter how you end it.
According to a recent study conducted by a team of researchers at Binghamton University, text messages that end with a period are perceived to be less sincere than other texts that do not.
Researchers recruited 126 Binghamton undergraduate students and asked them to read a “series of exchanges that appeared either as text messages or as handwritten notes.” One exchange featured the receiver’s response ending in a period while the other exchange did not.
The takeaway? You guessed it: If you’re ending your text messages with a period, you’re perceived to be a real asshole.
“Texting is lacking many of the social cues used in actual face-to-face conversations,” team lead Celia Klin said. “When speaking, people easily convey social and emotional information with eye gaze, facial expressions, tone of voice, pauses, and so on. People obviously can’t use these mechanisms when they are texting. Thus, it makes sense that texters rely on what they have available to them — emoticons, deliberate misspellings that mimic speech sounds and, according to our data, punctuation.”
However, Klin also said that using an exclamation point at the end of a text message will make you look more sincere, which means the next time your buddy texts you “Eat a dick!” you’ll have to assume he sincerely wants you to go chow down on some penis.
h/t EurekAlert!
Breaking up with somebody by texting him or her is a real dick move, too: 15 Harsh Ways People Got Dumped Via Text
