[00:00:00] How often in your emails or texts do you use emojis or drawings of faces conveying varied emotions to add emphasis pictorially? What is their impact? Researchers wanted to find out if, in digital communication, emojis are equivalent to the emotions depicted. Do they serve as a social information, like in person emotional facial expressions? They instructed over 600 participants to imagine a friend had sent 100 WhatsApp messages with and without emojis. Half of the messages contained positive and negative emojis and half without any, to determine whether those receiving emojis interpreted the emotions as more positive or negative. In line with the emoji results, researchers found that emojis help people to express their emotional state broadly, positive or negative, so others better understood the tone and context of their messages. In this study, positive emojis more effectively conveyed positive positive meaning then the negative emojis conveyed negative meanings. Next time you send a text or email, think about how emojis might emphasize a point you want to convey in your message. Take a social cue from others to determine whether they will welcome your using emojis. Be sure it provides the emotional emphasis you want.
