--- title: Ending Texts With a Period Makes You Seem Insincere: Study description: Okay. Sure. Yeah. Fine. No I'm not mad at you. canonical: https://time.com/4141133/ending-texts-periods/ author: Nolan Feeney article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-08T21:00:31.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:27:29.985Z og:title: Study: Ending Texts With a Period Makes You Seem Insincere og:description: Okay. Sure. Yeah. Fine. No I'm not mad at you. og:url: https://time.com/4141133/ending-texts-periods/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Study: Ending Texts With a Period Makes You Seem Insincere twitter:description: Okay. Sure. Yeah. Fine. No I'm not mad at you. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Ending Texts With a Period Makes You Seem Insincere, Study Finds > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME The Brief: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition The Brief is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. The day's top headlines, curated by TIME editors. The Brief brings TIME's perspective to the day's most important stories, helping readers understand not just what is happening, but why it matters. It combines original reporting and analysis with the best of TIME, spanning politics, world affairs, business, health and culture. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Dec 8, 2015 9:00 PM UTC  by [Nolan Feeney](https://time.com/author/nolan-feeney/)  ## Nolan Feeney Dec 8, 2015 9:00 PM UTC The most stressful moment in a text conversation often comes when you receive a sentence that ends in a simple period. Even the most neutral texts can seem like stern responses when accompanied by a full stop. Send a “Fine.” instead of a “Fine!” when making plans and there’s a good chance the recipients of your message will wonder if you’re angry with them. Frequent texters have long suspected this, but now a study published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior is confirming it: putting a period at the end of a sentence while texting [makes you seem insincere](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/12/08/study-confirms-that-ending-your-texts-with-a-period-is-terrible/?tid=sm%5Ffb), according to researchers led by Binghamton University’s Celia Klin, the Washington _Post_ reports. Researches asked 126 undergrads to read a series of conversations, in the form of both texts and hand-written notes, that featured positive one-word responses (Okay, Sure, Yeah, Yup) with and without periods. The text messages with periods were rated as less sincere than those without, and [no such difference](http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563215302181) was observed with the hand-written variations. “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](http://www.eurekalert.org/pub%5Freleases/2015-12/bu-stm120815.php). “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.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4141133/ending-texts-periods/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4141133/ending-texts-periods/"},"headline":"Ending Texts With a Period Makes You Seem Insincere, Study Finds","datePublished":"2015-12-08T21:00:31.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:27:29.985Z","description":"Okay. Sure. Yeah. Fine. 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