The Influence Of Social Context And Graphic Relationship On Emoji Usage Preference

The development of computer media promotes the continuous optimization of the forms of social networking.As a communication method assisted by text on social media platforms,Emoji has become a non-verbal cue that can replace body language in face-to-face communication.People’s choice of emojis reflects their acceptance and recognition as a communication tool,and the use of different emojis has become an indispensable part of Internet communication.Current studies have found that emojis have functions such as emotional expression,semantic transmission,maintaining interpersonal relationship and showing interest,which are influenced by context,culture,situation and other factors.This study mainly explores individuals’ preference for emoji usage and believes that social context and graphic relationship will affect individual behaviors’ influence on emoji usage preference.The experimental method was used to investigate the influence of social context and graphic relationship on emoji usage preference among college students.The first experiment explored whether social context and literal valence affected individuals’ emoji usage preferences.The subjects were college students.2(social situation: positive and negative)×2(text titer: positive and negative)×2(emoji: used and not used)was used as the experimental design.The subjects chose the response results as the behavioral indicators of emoji use preference.The results found that:(1)The main effect of emoji selection is significant.People tend to choose the chat content with emojis to reply,indicating that emojis act as non-verbal cues used in the online social environment.(2)The main effect of text titer is significant.It indicates that people use emoji as an auxiliary tool for text in online chat to improve communication fluency and information understanding.(3)The interaction between social context and emojis is significant.The number of emojis selected in negative social situations was higher than that in positive social situations.The interaction between text valence and social context is significant.In positive text response,the frequency of positive text response in positive social situation was significantly higher than that in negative social situation.The frequency of negative text response in negative social context was significantly higher than that in positive social context.Experiment 2 is extended on the basis of experiment 1.To explore the influence of graphic relationship on individual emoji usage preference in negative social situations.College students were still taken as the subject group,and 3(emoji:positive,neutral,negative)×2(graphic relationship: consistent titer and inconsistent titer)was adopted as the in-test experimental design.The results of selected responses were used as behavioral indicators of emoji usage preference.The results found that:(1)The main effect of emoji is significant.There are differences in the use preference of emojis with different valence.(2)The interaction between emoji and graphic content titer matching was significant.In the use of negative emojis,the inconsistency of titer matching was significantly higher than that of titer matching.Under the condition of same titer,positive expression was used more than neutral expression and more than negative expression.In the case of inconsistent titer,positive expression was used more than negative expression and more than neutral expression.Finally,the conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)Different social situations have an impact on the use of emojis by individuals,especially in negative social situations.(2)Text valence had an impact on emoji usage preference.The number of uses in positive text is higher than that in negative text.(3)Whether the titer of graphic relationship is consistent will affect the choice of individual emoji use.When the titer of graphic relationship was consistent,the use of positive emojis was greater than that of neutral emojis than that of negative emojis.In the case of inconsistent titer,positive emojis were greater than negative emojis than neutral emojis.(4)Individuals’ preference for emojis is mainly reflected in emotional and non-emotional aspects.The emotional aspect is emotion expression and emotion reinforcement;Non-emotional aspects for organizational content,visual enhancement.