When you think about the Dutch social networking site Hyves, you think about the dancing banana. And if you see the combination ‘:p’, you immediately think of that happy smiley on MSN Messenger. Some 20 years ago, people first came across emoticons on these kinds of platforms. Since then, emoji have become an integral part of our digital communication. ‘From young to old, almost everyone likes to use emoji,’ language and communication scientist Lieke Verheijen dares to state.
Together with student Tamara Mauro, Verheijen investigated whether there are differences in the way children and adults use emoji. ‘What kind of emoji do they use, how many do they use, with what function, and in what position in a message?’, Verheijen lists. The language scientists investigated this with an experiment at the Kletskoppen Kindertaalfestival. On a large board, participants were shown messages such as “RIP, Kat Poekie van oma is overleden” (RIP, Grandma's cat Poekie has died) or “Yesss. Morgen naar de Efteling voor mn verjaardag!!” (Yesss. Going to the Efteling for my birthday tomorrow!!). To these messages, young children and their parents had to add emoji (magnets) at the same time, without being able copy each other.
‘It was noticeable that both groups have similar intuitions when using emoji,’ says Verheijen. 'Both adults and children chose faces more often than objects, and they mostly placed emoji at the end of the message. In addition, they mainly used emoji to express positive emotions.’
Crying with laughter
Besides comparing adults and children, Verheijen and Mauro examined how demographic factors affect children's emoji use. Verheijen: ‘We looked at their age, gender, whether they already own a smartphone, and whether they are active on social media.’ These factors do indeed influence how children use emoji.
'We found that older children, girls, children with their own smartphones, and children who are on social media used emoji in a more sophisticated manner. For example, by using emoji in the middle of messages in the place of full stops and commas,’ Verheijen explains. ‘Moreover, they made less illogical emoji choices,’ Mauro adds. 'With the sentence about the deceased cat, someone placed a smiley who is crying with laughter. We call this unconventional emoji use and we hardly saw, for example, older children doing this.'
Although this study provides preliminary insights into emoji use, the linguists emphasize that additional research is needed to be able to make any definite statements. ‘In this experimental study, we only had fifty different emoji, while there are thousands now, and participants could only use each emoji once. You want to compare these results with research in a non-experimental setting, preferably with lots of messages from children and adults.’ For example, other research by Verheijen suggests that children tend to repeat emoji more (think of five identical smileys in a row).
Digital natives and digital immigrants
Using emoji in a sophisticated way or not stems from what Verheijen and Mauro call emoji literacy; the ability to correctly understand and use emoji in written digital communication. ‘Emoji can take on new, figurative meanings and it can be difficult to keep up with all these connotations,’ Mauro explains. 'For instance, some people will be surprised by a skull emoji after a joke, while others immediately understand that someone is “dying” from laughter. The same goes for the cap emoji when you think someone is lying.’ The linguists point out the difference between digital natives who grew up with digital communication and therefore emoji, and digital immigrants who only encountered digital communication later in life.
‘When using emoji, you have to take into account your communication partner or target audience, because their understanding of emoji varies,’ Mauro explains. ‘As an individual, but certainly also as an organisation,’ stresses Verheijen. Mauro: ‘An incorrectly used emoji is similar to a spelling mistake, this can really bother people.’
Despite this warning, Verheijen and Mauro see all kinds of professional areas where emoji come in handy. Think of marketing, webcare, or online customer contact. Or health communication where children can indicate how they feel via emoji scales. 'As long as people have a good understanding of what emoji can mean and how you can use them, they are a fun and useful part of digital communication.’
Photo: Lidya Nada via Unsplash