Emojis don't necessarily make you more likeable when chatting in a messenger app, but they do increase the chances your friend will feel closer to you, new research shows. — Photo: Jörg Carstensen/dpa
AUSTIN: One little laughing face or heart can go a long way to improving your relationship with the person at the other end of your chat app, according to new research showing that emojis can increase how satisfied and close two people feel in their friendship.
Communication scientist Eun Huh from the University of Texas at Austin examined how people in the US assessed the responsiveness of their counterparts in digital communication and the role emojis played in this context.
For the study, 260 participants were presented with 15 dialogues consisting of text messages and were asked to imagine these as conversations with their friends.
Randomly, one half received messages with emojis, while the other half received messages without them. After reading the messages, the participants rated on a scale how they perceived the responsiveness of their counterpart, as well as the perceived "likability, closeness and relationship satisfaction."
The results showed that when emojis were used, participants rated the sender's responsiveness higher, which in turn led to a greater sense of closeness and satisfaction with the relationship.
However, when it came to likeability, no significant effect was observed. It also made little difference whether face emojis, such as smileys, or other emoji symbols like hearts, aeroplanes or confetti cannons were used.
The study, published in the journal PLOS One in July, stated that emojis added emotional depth to digital communication and expanded interaction. Additionally, emojis made messages more lively and could help prevent misunderstandings.
Other studies have already shown that emojis are, in a way, the digital equivalent of non-verbal cues like facial expressions or gestures, helping to better convey emotions.
The author noted the limitation that the participants did not receive messages from actual friends and that the respective interaction was only evaluated from one direction. Furthermore, the participants, who lived in the US, were recruited via an online platform that compensates people financially for completing certain tasks.
According to another study published in PLOS One by researchers from Indiana University and the Kinsey Institute in the United States, people who use emojis more frequently are said to have greater emotional intelligence. Emojis, they said, are a way to convey content and communicate more effectively.
While classic emojis like smiling faces have been part of everyday digital communication for years, new ones are constantly being added, reflecting societal developments.
For example, the Unicode Consortium, which sets the international standard for character encoding, announced earlier this year that it would introduce new emojis, including those for beetroot, fingerprints and a dead tree.
"Environmentalism is not a fad. Climate change becomes reality for our everyday lives, drought become more common and severe, many ecosystems [have] collapsed," wrote Brian Baihaki, who proposed this emoji, in his submission. Anyone can propose emojis to Unicode, provided they justify the added value of the proposed symbol. – dpa
