
Real live scientists from a proper academic institution have just conducted a study on text messages and found that using punctuation can indicate your level of sincerity.
And the main culprit that shows you’re not being as sincere as you could be, is the much loved full stop.
Sorry, full stop.
Think about it, when you tell your husband to “pick up some bread on the way home,” it sounds a whole lot nicer if you don’t use a period.
You follow?
The researchers from Binghamton University’s Harpur College made the remarkable findings by observing 126 students, who read a series of messages displayed as either an SMS on a screen or as handwritten notes on real, actual paper.
The sender’s message contained a statement, followed by an invitation phrased as a questions such as, ‘Dave gave me his extra ticket. Wanna come?’

Reported in the journal article, “Texting insincerely: the role of the period in text messaging” in Computers in Human Behavior they explained that the receiver then gave a one-word response like ‘Okay’, ‘Sure’, ‘Yeah’ or ‘Yup’.
Half of the participants’ responses used a full stop and the other half did not. The recipients then rated the sender’s sincerity.
Did the sender really, truly want them to come to the concert or was there an ulterior motive?
Huh… huh… HUH?
Perhaps the sender just wanted someone else to pay for ticket? Or the sender knew it was going to be a dud of a concert and wanted someone else to have a bad time too? Or maybe, just maybe, the sender was trying to make up for some unknown wrong.
Hmmm.
Grand kids ask their grandparents to interpret popular text message slang and the results are GR8. Post continues after video..
Top Comments
What utter garbage!
Are these people serious? Meanwhile someone is doing research on cancer cures....
Some of us learned English back in the day when we were supposed to use full stops (not periods my American friends).
Considering my smartphone does what the hell it likes anyway. I write she it becomes age, but interestingly I just tried to write age there and it changed to ads! So becomes do. And I swear to God that it changes my their to there! Yes the grammatical nazis on here, I know the difference! I don't suppose it's because I'm typing too quick hee hee I'll blame it on my phone!
By the way if I have my period I'll damn well add a period if I want to!