Research On Emoticons Design In Mobile Social Media For The Elderly

The rapid development of network technology has diversified the ways of transmitting information.With the advent of the era of information small-screen communication,visual images have become a new carrier of information transmission.Therefore,emoticons are the main embodiment of pictorial information transmission.As a visual language,emoticons have gone through different stages of development and are favored by people of different ages.For users of mobile social media,teenagers account for the largest proportion,so they have more hegemony over online emoticons in online discourse.The young feel that the emoticons used by the elderly are outdated,backward and earthy.But the elderly are still eager to keep up with the times and not be forgotten.According to the 41 st statistical report on Internet development in China in 2018,the number of mobile Internet users in China have reached 753 million by December 2017.The proportion of mobile Internet users rose to97.5 percent and continues to rise.Among them,the proportion of people over 60 years old has increased,and the Internet continues to penetrate into the elderly.It can be seen that the elderly,as "digital immigrants",are enthusiastic about the use of mobile social media and emoticons.But when the elderly use emoticons,they face difficulties and challenges.In this case,what development should be made in the design of emoticons in mobile social media for the elderly and in what form is more suitable for the needs of the elderly?Based on the design of "emoticons" as the breakthrough point,the paper takes WeChat,a mobile social media with a large base of elderly users,as an example,and takes the elderly users who use these mobile social media as the research object.And then the paper analyzes their psychological needs,expression needs and life styles,andcombines the relevant content of cognitive semiotics to have a new thinking on elderly emoticons.According to the current status of elderly emoticons,some design strategies that are more conducive to the use of elderly users are formulated.