There are definitely unwritten rules of texting. For example, read receipts are the devil (He read my message 13 minutes ago WTF) and ending a text in a period is enough to give someone a straight-up panic attack. Don’t believe me? According to The Washington Post, researchers at Binghampton University asked 126 undergraduates to judge a series of sample messages, including texts and handwritten notes. To no one’s surprise, text messages featuring periods were deemed to be “insincere.” According to researcher Celia Klin, the text message period has taken on a life of its own. It’s no longer just the correct way to end a sentence; it’s an act of psychological warfare against your friends. “Texting is lacking many of the social cues used in actual face-to-face conversations. When speaking, people easily convey social and emotional information with eye gaze, facial expressions, tone of voice, pauses, and so on,” Klin said in a statement. “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.” In a follow-up study that has yet to be published, the use of exclamation points may make your messages seem more sincere than no punctuation at all. Tbh, I feel like that’s true. What a time to be alive, my friends!!!!!!