When Exchanging Text Messages, Communication

The following paper examines the nonverbal communication of emoji usage and how this affects positive and negative messages. Our sample contained 71 college-aged individuals, including about 61% women and 39% men. Our study consisted of four independent groups who were each shown a unique text message consisting of either a positive or negative response, with or without the use of emojis. We asked the participants to rate the interaction based on factors including friendliness and interest in the proposed date. Our results showed a significant difference in the perceived demeanor of the sender based on response type, with positive responses being rated higher than negative responses.

We also found a significant difference based on emoji usage, with more positive ratings being given to those messages that contained emojis as opposed to no emojis. No significant interaction was found. Our results imply that while response type and emoji usage does affect how the participants evaluate the messages, the two together do not have a significantly greater effect than the sum of the parts.

In a technology-driven age, we frequently find ourselves communicating through digital means. Oftentimes, emotions can be lost in translation due to a lack of nonverbal cues like body language and facial expression. One way we have tried to express emotion through messaging is with emoticons. An emoticon represents a facial expression and may be useful in conveying how the sender is feeling, along with what he or she wants to say. Our study examines the usefulness of emojis in conveying something that the message alone is perhaps unable to do.

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Previous studies have shown that when we use emoticons in correspondence with similar-meaning messages, receivers are better able to interpret the level and direction of emotion (Lo, 2008). It has also been shown that emotions expressed by emojis affect the receiver’s emotions through a process called “emotional contagion” (Lohmann et al., 2017). With text messaging, communication is nonverbal and easily misinterpreted. Without the ability to hear and see how someone is responding, it is sometimes hard to detect the emotion they are attempting to convey. Emojis can improve the accuracy of reading emotions and attitudes through text communications.

We expect the participants’ ratings of the response to correspond with the response type (whether or not the sender replies “yes” or “no” to a date proposal). Therefore, if the response is positive, we expect the ratings to be more positive than if the response is negative, and vice versa (H1). From the previous research, it seems that emoji use has some clarifying aspects when it comes to interpreting the demeanor of the sender. Therefore, we expect to see more positive ratings of perceived demeanors of the sender of those messages with emojis as opposed to without (H2). Finally, we postulate that the corresponding response and emoji type will have a multiplicative effect, allowing for even greater understanding and evaluation of the emotion of the text message response (H3). 71 undergraduate students (43 women, 28 men) participated in this experiment at a large public university in northeastern United States. We recruited them using convenience sampling. The participants consisted of 6 sophomores, 49 juniors, and 16 seniors. Their mean age was 20.27 years (SD = 0.86).

The materials of this study consisted of four unique Google Forms for each of the four groups. The survey first asked participants to provide their gender, age, and year in school. They were then presented with a screenshot of a text message between “John” and “Jane.” The first two messages were greetings from both the sender and receiver. This was followed by John asking Jane if she was “free to grab coffee this weekend.” The last message differed between the four forms with the response of one of the following: “Sure,” “Sure,” “No ,” or “No.” Finally, the survey consisted of three 7-point Likert scale questions asking how Jane felt about getting coffee with John, the friendliness of her response, and her interest in the proposition.

This experiment used a 2×2 between-subjects research design. The independent variables were type of response and emoji usage. There were two levels for each independent variable. The levels of IV1 were positive response or negative response. The levels for IV2 were the presence or absence of an emoji. The dependent variable was the perceived demeanor of the sender. Our survey used three Likert-scale questions to measure the dependent variable. We divided participants into four groups based on where they were sitting in the classroom. We then instructed them to open one of four surveys on their computer based on their group number. We asked them to report their gender, age, and year in school. They read the text message provided and answered the following questions based on what they had read. The questions asked how the sender felt about the proposition, how friendly or unfriendly the participant perceived the sender’s response, and how interested or uninterested the sender was in the plan. We instructed them to close their laptop once they finished the survey.

Our study found that while response type and emoji usage have an effect on how the participants viewed the messages, the interaction between the two did not have a multiplicative effect. We observed a large effect size for response type and a small effect size for emoji usage. There are several possibilities as to why an interaction between the two variables was not found. Due to our small sample, there may have simply not been enough data on the topic in order to find a statistically significant result. It also may be true that while the two variables have an effect on the perception of the message, the combination does not call for a more polarizing rating from the participants. Our findings are consistent with past research, in that we saw a significant difference in the rating of the text messages based on emoji usage. We did not, however, have a representative sample and therefore were not able to see cross-cultural differences. From our study we are able to conclude that response type and emoji usage have an effect on the perception of the emotion/attitude of a text message from the perspective of college-aged students at a public university in northeastern United States.

There are several issues with internal validity that should be taken into account. Our sample was small, non-representative and groups were not randomly assigned. This selection bias may account for differences in the results, unrelated to the effects of the independent variables. There is also reason to believe that selective attrition may have affected our results, in that only 71 students participated in a classroom with over 100 students present. Students who opted not to participate may have some factors in common that could have affected our results had they participated. Our survey was also given in a classroom with poorly controlled conditions. For example, some students may have also been texting or talking to friends while taking the survey, while others were solely focused on the task at hand.

While our studied utilized two of the more simple emojis, there is currently 89 “smiley” emoticons in the most recent Apple software update (12.1.1). With this said, it may be useful to conduct a similar study using a greater variety of emoticons provided by the company. In a larger scale, it would also be useful to incorporate different mobile platforms that have their own unique emoticons like Google or Microsoft. It would be necessary to conduct a larger study with a more representative sample in order to generalize our findings. It has been found that people of different countries have significantly different preferences in emojis, most likely due to different cultural backgrounds (Lu, et al. 2016). This being said, a future study might want to consider the cross-cultural differences of the current findings. Our study also only considered one type of text message conversation—a date proposition from a male to a female. Results may be very different based on a conversation between friends, or even a different type of conversation between potential love interests.

The findings of this study could be useful in determining a way to better digitally communicate emotion. Facial expressions have a communicative component (Frith, 2009). If we are able to recreative similar cognitive processes with emoticons, it may be easier for people to detect and understand emotion in text messages. Still even, it remains unresolved whether this solution would be useful cross-culturally and if so, if the same emoticons would have the same effects in different cultures.