I use alt+0151 for em dashes and alt+0150 for en dashes, or if I’m in Word or Outlook I use its autocorrect to trigger them (“word - word ” turns into an en dash while “word--word “ turns into an em dash).
But now I’m starting to avoid them. I’m just glad AI hasn’t ruined semicolons yet (especially since I’m using them sometimes to replace em dashes).
The two dominant style guides in the U.S. (Chicago Manual of Style and the A.P. Stylebook) prescribe no spaces around em dashes. When I do professional writing I default to Chicago, so I learned to eventually omit spaces around em dashes. That's still my main way of distinguishing myself, for now.
Oh it's interesting! In French typography (which I use in English if I don't know this language's rule), there's a normal space between the main text and the dash, and a non-breaking space between the dash and the inclusion. But I may turn to Chicago, now that I know that.
The different style guides are designed for their particular environments. Most American newspapers and magazines follow AP, but most book publishers follow Chicago. Academics in the humanities tend to follow MLA, while academics in the social sciences tend to use APA. Hell, IEEE has a style guide for electrical engineers.
So do whatever you prefer. I tend to use Chicago because that's what I know best, but I have worked professionally in writing and editing publications that followed the Chicago rules.
Ugh, there are those of us that are fully aware of the proper uses for en dashes and em dashes, and I'm not going to stop properly using my em dashes just so people don't think sending them an AI generated response.
Another comment mentioned a "giveaway" is the "there dots but as one character". I don't know about y'all's keyboards, but if I type an ellipses my phone's keyboard automatically changes it to a single character of three dots and has been doing so for years.
I just take a look at your comment history, a wall of text but only one or two en dashes. Compared to the oop's one, 3 em dashes in just a couple of paragraph. The difference both you and AI is a lot.