Hi! I’m Chinese and this is incorrect. 吗 (mā) and 边 (biān) actually have the same flat intonation, so there isn’t a rise in pitch in either of the questions. To answer OP, the word 吗 in particular is just typically used to end off some sentences in order to differentiate whether they are statements or questions, ie. 你要回家。(You want to go home.) vs 你要回家吗？(Do you want to go home?)

You may have misread. They are using Asahi on their MacBook Pro with the M2 Pro chip.

Ah, it is a bit disheartening to see how differing opinions are treated here sometimes. But hey, gotta be the change you want to see, right?

Chiming in to say that I agree with you! Texting in lowercase just feels right to me, especially with friends and family.