“Ending a text message with a period makes you seem like a jerk, study shows”

The world of text-based messaging is no place for proper punctuation, according to a newly released American study — unless, of course, you want to be seen as a jerk. Researchers from the department of psychology at New York's Binghamton University recently conducted a series of experiments with 126 undergraduate students to explore the role of the period in text messages. Participants were asked to read 16 different conversations in the form of either texts or handwritten notes. After asking the students to rate how "sincere" each reply sounded, researchers noticed a stark contrast in perception between the replies that had a period at the end of them and those that didn't, despite the messages being otherwise identical. "Texts that ended with a period were rated as less sincere than those that did not," reads the abstract of the study. Interestingly, no such difference was found for the handwritten notes. The study's lead researcher, Celia Klin, speculated as to why punctuation marks can hold so much meaning for digital conversations. "Texting is lacking many of the social cues used in actual face-to-face conversations," she said. Klin continues, "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.” So if you want to spare the feelings of people you text, forget what your elementary school teachers told you about punctuation.

In Other News  Beauty pageants are places where grace and poise are meant to rule, but a decidedly awkward moment stole the show Sunday. Miss Universe 2015 host Steve Harvey wrongfully declared Miss Colombia the winner when she was the first runner-up. Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach, the contestant from the Philippines, had won. A contrite Harvey was forced to fix his mistake. "OK folks... I have to apologize," he told a confused crowd in Las Vegas.  "Star Wars" now rules the box office galaxy. "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" became the biggest opening in movie history bringing in an estimated $238 million in the U.S. this weekend. The film flew past the opening weekend record held by Universal's "Jurassic World," which made $208.8 million on the weekend it opened in June. So far the film has made $517 million around the world since opening overseas on Wednesday. This is the second highest global debut of all-time behind only "Jurassic World," which made $525 million globally in June. The Disney film opened in 4,134 theaters. It is the seventh in the "Star Wars" saga, and the first film starring beloved characters like Harrison Ford's Han Solo and Carrie Fisher's Princess Leia since 1983's "Return of the Jedi."