Oleszkiewicz, Anna, Karwowski, Maciej, Pisanski, Katarzyna, Sorokowski, Piotr, Sobrado, Boaz and Sorokowska, Agnieszka (2017) Who uses emoticons? Data from 86 702 Facebook users. Personality and Individual Differences, 119. pp. 289-295. ISSN 0191-8869

PDF - Accepted Version Restricted to SRO admin only until 16 August 2019. Download (940kB)

Abstract

Emoticons are graphical representations of emotions used in virtual communication. We explored patterns of
emoticon use in a sample of 86 702 Facebook users (aged 16 to 60, 59% women).We analyzed the total number
and type of emoticons posted to public Facebook feeds as a function of a user's gender, age and Big Five personality
characteristics. In our sample, 90% of Facebook users employed emoticons. The most popular 15 emoticons
represented 99.6% of all emoticons posted. Our results further showed that the frequency of emoticon usagewas
predicted mainly by age and gender, explaining 16% of the variance, whereas user's personality scores explained
b2%. These findings suggest that emoticon usage may assist in profiling user's demographic, but not necessarily
psychological traits.

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	School of Psychology > Psychology
Depositing User:	Kasia Pisanski
Date Deposited:	02 Nov 2017 11:33
Last Modified:	02 Nov 2017 11:33
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/70862

View download statistics for this item

📧 Request an update