What are emoticons? Why are they controversial in business communication?

Email is a lean medium,so expressing emotional nuances in an email message will challenge even experienced communicators.Therefore,users of email (IM and texting too)have developed emoticons to express emotions in casual communication.Over the years,using emoticons in business communication has been widely regarded as unprofessional.Recently,though,more professionals seem to be using them,particularly for communication with close colleagues,even as other professionals still view them as evidence of lazy or immature writing.Given these conflicting perspectives,think carefully before including an emoticon in a workplace email.As a rule,avoid emoticons for all types of external communication and for formal internal communication,and avoid those bright yellow graphical emoticons in all business communication.