Emoticons, Peer Pressure and the Environment

I vaguely remember my younger brother's potty training days. What do I remember most? Smiley face stickers. Smiley face stickers in a rainbow of colors. He would get stickers whenever he would use the potty instead of his pull ups or training pants (tangent: I've finally realized why the British use of the word "trainers" for what Americans call "sneakers" has always struck me as slightly odd).

Emoticons in the form of stickers were a large part of many people's childhoods. The Mr.Ick face stickers made it very apparent that we shouldn't drink Drano. A smiley face on homework meant we did a great job. Two smiley faces or a smiley face with a huge smile on a test? Wow, you are awesome. A winky face sticker from a third grade crush was liable to make any elementary age girl cover a whole notebook with hearts and different ways to sign Mrs.(insert future married name here).

So, we have been conditioned to rely on these simple nose-less miniature caricatures of human emotion. The smiley face wasn't unveiled until 1964, with its height of popularity of smiley pins peaking a few years later (furthermore, it wasn't really invented by Forrest Gump...pity). I can only assume that stickers came some years after the pins, thus making the ubiquitous smiley face sticker perfect for the generation X- and Y-ers. It is only natural that we feel so familiar with the little guy (or gal...). Furthermore, we link the presence of a smiley face to a feeling of elation, success and "I am totally better than the people who didn't get smiley faces." Likewise, a sad or frowney face encourages repulsion or encouragement to do better next time.

You must be asking now, "How the heck does this relate to the environment?" Well, I just read this Grist article which links human behavior, smileys and energy consumption. It reveals the tactics that some companies have used to help reduce energy consumption amongst individuals and their households.

We've all seen those little cards in hotel bathrooms that say something along the lines of "Re-use your towel! Save the planet!" Interestingly, these cards encourage only 33% of hotel patrons to re-use towels. When hotels decided to lie a little bit and tell the customers, "Re-use your towel! 75% of our patrons do, and you should too!" the numbers rose to 50% of people re-using towels (all of this is from the Grist article). As the article states, "People want to do basically what People Like Them do." It's so simple and so true. To get people to change their ways, convince them that everyone around them has already changed...

Now, I don't want this to come off as "I'm Alex and I live the epitome of an environmentally conscious life." That is far, far from the truth, but it is something I strive to do, and I try to convince others of doing the same. So, it's great to see the tactics that other similarly minded people are using to try to get this done. To quote the aforementioned article again, "Attitudes don’t translate into actions." But, other's actions could translate into changed attitudes, especially if peer pressure and smiley faces are involved.

Which brings us to the presence of smiley faces on energy bills. What if you got this in tandem with your next energy bill?:

You'd be pretty happy right? You're better than some of your neighbors...but you can be even better next time. A smiley face with a bar graph? Your second grade children can even see that you're pretty awesome. They can also see that you didn't get two smiley faces.

Strive for two smiley faces, it will save you money and boost your ego at the same time.

The moral of this story: However juvenile and kitschy smiley faces may seem to be, they hold a special place in our development as social creatures. They hold more sway than we may even realize. Good job Mr. Smiley Face creator (not Forrest Gump...pity).