By Saki Shimoda
Have you ever wondered the meaning of emoji? Many people often had experienced mysterious emoji. According to a survey conducted by Slack (2022), it found that 58% of people were unclear about the meaning of emoji. Younger generations were also more likely to say they had experienced someone misunderstanding an emoji they had sent. I have had this experience. I also noticed that the amount and type of emojis sent by men and women are different. So, in this article, I will compare the differences between men and women. These ideas suggest that women are more concerned about the meaning of emoji than men.
First, is there a difference in the frequency of using emoji between men and women? According to Wirza (2019), women are better than men at interpretation of sending and receiving non-verbal cues in conversation. Women who give speeches tend to use more cues than men. Liu (2023) has found that women use emojis more frequently than men, and that women love emojis and men love emotions. Furthermore, Prada (2018) declares that women had a more positive attitude towards the use of emojis. It also revealed that women use them convey humor. On the other hand, men use them to tease or express sarcasm. Women also valued emojis as more friendly, clear, and meaningful.
Second, do differences in the usage of emojis exist between men and women? In the survey (Wirza, 2019), the emoji of a face crying tears of joy was the second most used by women, while for men the second most used emoji was the emoji of folded hands. It was reported that women were more likely to express joy and sadness, while men were more likely to express anger, and there was a tendency for women to use positive emojis and men to use negative emojis more often (Liu, 2023). Men were more likely to use the ‘monkeyface’ and ‘drink’ categories, while women were more likely than men to use emojis in the ‘emotion’ category, such as hearts.
Finally, there is not only a difference between men and women on the user’s side, but also on the feeling side of the receiver. Herring and Dainas (2018) claim that women interpreted both the frowning and smiling emojis as having more functions than men. Some male respondents also interpreted the Heart Eyes emoji as describing physical behavior. Furthermore, differences in impressions between men and women were found in the same yellow smiley emoji. Women rated human faces that expressed negative emotions more negatively than men, which is similar to the neural processing of emoji. These suggest that women value pessimistic emojis more negatively than men (Jones, 2020).
Women are more likely than men to use emojis and use a variety of emojis. Furthermore, women are more impressionable about emojis than men and interpret then more negatively. These perspectives show that there are differences in the frequency and types of pictograms used by men and women, as well as differences in the feelings of the receivers.
REFERENCES
Prada, M (2018). Motives, frequency and attitudes toward emoji and emoticon use. Telematics and Informatics, 35,7,1925-1934.
Jones, L (2020). Sex differences in emoji use, familiarity, and valence. Computers in Human Behavior, 108.
Wirza, Y (2019). The Difference in Emoji Usage Between Genders.
Liu, M (2023). Individual differences in emoji use across age, gender, and personality: Based on a Survey of Simeji Users in 10s and 20s. social informatics, 11,3.
Herring, S & Dainas A (2018). Receiver Interpretations of Emoji Functions: A gender perspective.
TECH+ (2022). Beware of emojis that can be interpreted in different ways; an attempt to convey happiness may be misinterpreted as anger.
