*By Bridgette Webb*
Exclamation points may not have the effect you intend!
Years of overuse have stripped the punctuation mark of its meaning, turning it into an emotional catchall that could suggest anything from actual excitement and friendliness to reassurance and anger.
The ambiguity is stressing many out, and has major implications for coherent communication in the digital age, according to Katie Bindley, a reporter for the The Wall Street Journal.
"We are having conversations now that would otherwise be spoken taking place on text or email," said Bindley in an interview Tuesday on Cheddar. "With that you lose the ability to read facial expressions and tone of voice, so people are overcompensating for that."
And it's not only exclamation marks that are open to debate.
A 2016 [study](9https://www.binghamton.edu/news/story/873/study-punctuation-in-text-messages-helps-replace-cues-found-in-face-to-face) of 126 undergraduates by Binghamton University found that ending sentences with periods in a text was perceived as abrupt and insincere.
"Over text your often having these very quick back and forth, that mirrors spoken conversations," said Bindley. "We know on some level that over text that the addition of a period can really feel mean."
Though the punctuation debate is likely to continue to fill countless Slack channels and text message threads, Bindley advises people to use punctuation that makes sense to them.
"If you are naturally a bubbly person, I think its fine to use more than someone that's maybe not so bubbly," she said. "It really comes down to personal preference and your own comfort level."
For full interview, [click here] (https://cms.cheddar.com/videos/VmlkZW8tMjIwODk=).
David Bowie's entire catalog of songs has officially been sold to Warner Music Group by his estate for an estimated $250 million. This means the group now has the full rights to almost all of David Bowie's recordings. But Bowie, just the latest music mega deal. Just last month, Bruce Springsteen sold his entire catalog to Sony Music Entertainment at what in fact maybe be the biggest transaction ever for a single artist's body of work. In addition, John Legend also cashed in by selling rights to his songs from 2004 to early last year. Culture Correspondent at NPR, Anastasia Tsioulcas, joined Cheddar to discuss more.
Season 6 "Bachelorette" Ali Manno joined Cheddar's Baker Machado to discuss "The Bachelor" franchise, promoting children’s creativity, and motherhood. Manno also touched on her partnership with the cereal brand Pebbles to use their imagination by getting them to submit artwork, which then ended up on display across the country. "What I love about this so much is it not only encourages kids to be creative but it shows when you are creative and you use your imagination, you could be in a mural in a major city," she said.
On this episode of Cheddar Reveals Richenda Sandlin-Tymitz, Marketing & Content Manager at Alaska Tour & Travel, breaks down when and how to plan your best trip to Alaska; Kristen Miller, Acting Executive Director, Alaska Wilderness League, discusses the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the oil drilling that threatens it; Cheddar gets a look at Curiosity Stream's 'The Magic of the Wild.'
Richenda Sandlin-Tymitz, Marketing & Content Manager at Alaska Tour & Travel, joins Cheddar Reveals to break down when and how to plan your best trip to Alaska.
Kristen Miller, acting executive director, Alaska Wilderness League, discusses the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the oil drilling that threatens it.
Ellen Fitzsimmons-Craft, assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine, joins Cheddar News to discuss how chatbots can help prevent eating disorders and the research that uncovered these findings.
