On the way home after a hard day’s work. If you look into the messenger window in your smartphone that you have not checked due to study and work, you can see that numerous contacts are waiting for a reply. However, there is not enough time to reply individually. At this time, cute emoticons in the messenger that you don’t know when you bought them play a big role.
Emoticons play a role in conveying emotionsㅣSource: Getty Image Bank
Emoticons have many uses. This is because emoticons alone can fully convey emotions. More interestingly, emoticons can actually reduce negative emotions.
Emotion Agent Emoji
On the 3rd of last month, researchers at the University of Tokyo’s Convergence Information Research Department published their findings in the international journal ‘Frontiers in Psychology’. The study was conducted with 1,289 users of the most downloaded emoticons in Japan, and the researchers investigated the effect of online social interaction using emoticons on people’s emotions. Studies conducted in the past have shown that people use emojis that are similar to their emotions in Messenger.
The results showed that participants used emoticons more in really intimate relationships, in positive rather than negative conversations, and in private rather than public situations. In addition, it was found that people used emoticons less for people with a higher social status than for strangers.
Along with this, the researchers also found that emoticons can help users ease their emotions. Typically, during negative conversations, users sent cheerful emojis that were completely different from their actual emotions, such as playful emojis rather than angry emojis, which helped to soften users’ emotions and lower their stress levels. This is analyzed to be because emoticons act as emotional agents that express emotions instead.
In fact, in 2022, when Embrain Trend Monitor, a market research company, conducted an emoticon-related survey targeting 1,000 male and female adults aged 19 to 59 in Korea, 46.8% of the respondents (569 people) who thought emoticons positively ‘Emoticons express emotions well’, he replied. Also, 42.4% rated it as ‘helping to get over awkward situations tactfully’. Also, according to a study presented by Professor Lee Jang-seok of the Department of Media Communication at Gachon University on the 3rd, it was found that emoticons facilitate communication and help reveal one’s identity.
Excessive use weakens direct emotional expression
However, there are also concerns that emoticons weaken social skills and adversely affect the ability to express emotions directly. This is because emotional expression using emoticons is indirect and ambiguous. According to a study published in 2019 by researchers at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, USA, it was found that each user’s interpretation of emoticons is different, which can mislead the meaning. Experts warned, “It is good to use emoticons in moderation, but if you rely too much on them, it can adversely affect direct emotional expression.”
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