People’s Views on Smiley Emoji on WeChat Platform, Positive Emotion and Sarcasm

Abstract

Emoji can easily lead to misunderstanding. On WeChat, [Smile] is often used by the elderly to express positive emotions such as joy and praise, but young people often regard [Smile] as sarcasm. In this case, misunderstandings can easily occur. In order to confirm the existence of this phenomenon and analyse people’s understanding of emoji, this study selected 20 smiley emoji on WeChat platform and directly asked people’s opinions on these emoji through questionnaires, including whether they recommend others to use, and rating of emotion joy, praise, sarcasm. Analyses were performed based on the total sample and by age group. The results showed that [Smile] and [Bye] were interpreted in opposite ways by older people and younger people. Older people thought they represented positive emotion (joy, praise), while younger people thought they represented sarcasm. Such emojis are easy to misunderstand. On the other hand, some emojis like [Yeah!], both the old and the young have a similar understanding that it represents a positive emotion.