This is the journal entry that was due on Sunday, now arriving on Wednesday.

Anyway…

I began to collect results on Monday. Google Forms is supporting the whole survey, thus contributing to Google’s eventual takeover of the world alongside Oprah and Disney, although I can’t say that I’d be complaining about that particular trio being in charge. But I heavily digress…

My collecting of data is more or less a done deal – people take the survey, Google collects the results, and I explore them next week after I stop collecting results. However, the analyzing of this data could be a bit of a challenge…

I had already seen some limitations with my study before I began to collect results. But I see even more limitations and issues with my survey upon looking at some of the survey responses. Some aspects of my survey that could have been more robust include:

• Terminology – I used the word “smiley” when I was technically referring to “emoji.” While they are similar in composition, emojis are part of the Unicode Consortium, while smileys are not.
• Descriptions – When I asked the question about people linking to Facebook posts, some have expressed that they do not know how to link to their posts.
• Questions themselves – I could have asked the question about Facebook more broadly, as some say that they used smileys in comments and Facebook Messenger – but not in actual posts/status updates. Additionally, I could have asked questions about how people have used smileys in recent text messages, emails, etc.