Emoticons literacy
Tony Byungho Lee
LIS 391
1. Introduction
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to find the influence of the age and computer use pattern on
Emoticons literacy.
Research questions
The research question of this study is:
1.
What are the differences in understanding and using Emoticons
between different age groups?
2.
What are the differences in understanding and using Emoticons
between groups with different pattern of using computer/internet?
2. Literature review
Definition and use of emoticons on Internet.
Emoticons are widely used in many different areas of Internet. Therefore, it is important
to search the definition of emoticons in Internet environment, and study how current
users understand emoticons. Also, it is important to briefly search how many emoticons
are being used between internet users.
Acronyms, Emoticons & Smilies page. (2002).
http://www.muller-godschalk.com/emoticon.html
This webpage provides a large number of emoticons used in WWW environment. The
various emoticons listed in this webpage shows that emoticons are continuously being
developed and expanding. But the various emoticons also indicate that emoticons do not
have generally accepted meaning between different individuals and groups, except for
some widely used emoticons.
Cknow Definitions/Acronyms/Abbreviations. (2001).
http://www.cknow.com/ckinfo/emoticons.htm
This webpage gives a brief description and history of emoticons, and explains the
background culture that influenced the development of new emoticons. This webpage is
more focusing on the list of emoticons, providing a large numbers of emoticons in
alphabetical order. But like many of the similar sites that provide emoticons list, it is
difficult to show what level of emoticons are generally accepted and understood.
Tamosaitis, N. (1994). Net talk. Emeryville, CA: Ziff-Davis press
Various Emoticons and small comments are included in this book. I found out that this
book explained certain Emoticons having one meaning and other websites explained it
as having different meaning. For example, 8:-) is explained as “little girl”, but in
different websites (http://netforbeginners.about.com/) explained it as “men with a
sunglass”. This discrepancy is interesting point, because it could indicate that there are
no fixed meaning for Emoticons.
Development of emoticons.
Finding the specific developer of certain sign that is widely used in current world could
be difficult. But for emoticons, there is a certain inventor -Scott Fahlman. It will be
important to track the development of the first emoticons, and how the inventor views
the spread of emoticons in the world.
Fahlman, E, S. Smiley Lore :-). http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/sefSmiley.htm
Scott Fahlman is known as the inventor of the first emoticons. In his webpage, he
explains the reason he developed the first emotions :-) and how it spread out to other
networks. He explains that the first emoticons were developed to help people better
communicate in bulletin boards. This webpage also includes the first message that
includes emoticons. It is interesting to see the first developer of certain culture explain
about it himself, and his negative opinion on Microsoft and AOL using emoticons with
actual graphic.
The influence of emoticons.
Emoticons are widely used sign in current society. The introduction of such sign
influenced individuals in many ways. But there are not many empirical studies about the
influence of emoticons on communication and interaction. Two researches about
emoticons were used in this part to find the influence of emoticons.
Rivera, K., Cooke, J. N., & Bauhs, A. J. (1996). The effects of emotional icons on
remote communication. Proceedings of the CHI '96 conference companion on Human
factors in computing systems : Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
The authors of this paper researched the influence of using emoticons in Computer
Mediated Communication (CMC). The research subjects were divided into two different
groups, one group that could use emoticons and one group without emoticons. Each
group communicated with group members for certain task. The result showed that using
emoticons could help to communicate better between group members, and members feel
more comfortable in communicating. This research is interesting because it conducted
an empirical study on emoticons, and shows the actual difference between using and not
using emotions. But the research only included 6 basic emoticons. So if the research
includs more difficult emoticons, the result could be different.
Walther, B. J., & D'ddario, P. K. (2001). The impacts of emoticons on message
interpretation in computer-mediated communication. Social Science Computer Review,
19, (3), 324-347.
This article studies the influence of emoticons on message interpretations. This study
reflects the influence of the literatures on communication ?nonverbal communication and describes that emoticons are used in computer-mediated communication to
supplement the nonverbal cues. The result of this study indicates that
emoticons?influence is generally outweighed by verbal content. The author explains
that 뱓heir (emoticons? actual communicative effects are minimal in the context of the
language cues they may accompany?(p.344). This study has important meaning since
the result indicates that even widely used emoticons still do not have the influence to
shift the main context of verbal message.
3. Methodology
A survey and a follow-up interview were conducted to find the differences in Emoticons
literacy.
Survey
A survey was used to assess participant’s understanding of different Emoticons. The
survey was based on the online quiz for Emoticons.
(http://netforbeginners.about.com/library/quizzes/emoticons/bl-emoticons-intro.htm).
I made partial change to the original online quiz. I added three questions to cover more
diverse categories of Emotions, and also included questions about the participant’s age
and the pattern of using computer.
The survey asks question based on three categories: 1) basic level Emoticons – widely
used Emoticons, 2) Emoticons related to culture – Emoticons that needs cultural
background to understand it, 3) advanced level Emoticons – more sophisticated
Emoticons. These three categories are partly based on the criteria of the website that
provides the online quiz for Emoticons (http://netforbeginners.about.com/), and also
partly based on my personal perspective of Emoticons.
Participants were recruited from three sources at a state university in the Midwestern
United States. Some participants (n=12) participated in class. Some participants were
recruited from a religious group of university students (n=15), and some participants
were recruited from a computer lab in the university (n=18).
Surveys were distributed in face-to-face situation, and were collected by the researcher.
Interview
A follow-up interview was conducted for the following reasons: 1) The survey data only
covers small part of Emoticons that are currently being used. 2) The survey data does
not reflect the people’s perception about Emoticons, 3) The interview does not provide
extensive perspectives and in-depth view about Emoticons.
Interview questions were developed after reviewing the survey data. Two students were
recruited for the interview. Participant A is
Participant A is a graduate student who studied in university for 5 years. Participant A is
28 years old. Participant A works as a computer lab consultant, and deals with various
computer & Internet tasks. Participant A often uses email and Instant Messanger
programs (MSN messenger) with friends and colleagues.
Participant B is an undergraduate student who came from Korea, and studied at the
university for 6 months. Participant B is 22 years old. Participant B uses computer and
Internet in daily base, and communicates with friends using email and Instant
Messanger programs (MSN messenger).
Both participants use computer and internet in daily base, and use internet as a tool of
communication.
Interview questions were sent to the participants before the interview. One interview
was conducted in one-15minute-session on Nov 2002, was video taped and transcribed.
The other interview was conducted in one-30minute-session with an Instant Messanger
program on December 2002.
4. Findings
Survey findings
The survey question intended to compare two factors, the age and the pattern of using
computer. But the second factor – the pattern of using computer was dropped because
the question failed to find significant difference in the survey data (90% of the
participants answered they use computer in daily base. This result is partly because all
the participants were students -undergraduate, graduate, which use computer regularly).
Therefore the survey was analyzed only using the age factor.
The survey question was categorized into three groups: 1) Basic level Emoticons, 2)
Culture related Emoticons, and 3) Advanced Emoticons. The rate of correct answers
within each group was summarized, and the means between two age groups were
compared.
The rate of giving correct answers of two age groups (20s, 30s) was compared using Ttest. I used SPSS 10 statistics package to analyze the survey data.
Results
AGE
N
Mean
Std. Deviation
Std. Error Mean
30
18
75%
.2712
6.391E-02
20
27
94%
.1266
2.436E-02
30
18
66%
.3092
7.287E-02
20
27
85%
.1993
3.835E-02
30
18
77%
.2264
5.336E-02
20
27
85%
.2045
3.936E-02
BASIC
CULTURE
ADVANCED
Independent Samples Test
Levene's Test
for Equality of
Variances
t-test for Equality of Means
95% Confidence
Sig.
F
Sig.
T
df
Mean
Std. Error
Difference
Difference
(2-
Interval of the
Difference
tailed)
Lower
Upper
Equal
variances
6.556
.014
-7.3630E43
.002
-.1944
5.991E-02
-.3153
3.246
02
assumed
BASIC
Equal
variances
-
-5.2591E21.995
not
.009
-.1944
6.840E-02
-.3363
2.843
02
assumed
Equal
variances
5.811
.020
-3.2632E43
.019
-.1852
7.565E-02
-.3377
2.448
02
assumed
CULTURE
Equal
variances
-
-1.6041E26.396
not
.033
-.1852
8.235E-02
-.3543
2.249
02
assumed
Equal
variances
.865
.358
-7.4074E43
.260
1.141
6.494E-02
-.2050
5.689E-02
6.630E-02
-.2088
6.067E-02
02
assumed
ADVANCED
Equal
variances
-
-7.4074E33.960
not
1.117
.272
02
assumed
The survey data shows that there is significant difference between two age groups (20s,
30s) in 1) Basic Emoticons and 2) Culture related Emoticons. But the data shows no
significant difference 3) Advanced Emoticons.
The age group of 20 gave more correct answers than the age group of 30 when
answering questions about 1) Basic Emoticons. The age group of 20 answered more
correctly than the age group of 30 when answering questions about 2) Culture related
Emoticons. But both the age group of 20 and 30 showed similar result when answering
questions about 3) Advanced-more sophisticated Emoticons.
Interview findings
A semi-structured interview was conducted with two participants. The interview
focused on the following questions.
1. Can you please explain about emoticons? How often do you use it?
Usually I just use smiley faces, when I want to say something like…
something good, then I just put a smiley face… or a joke… I use it when I’m
in a kind of good mood… It is more like a personal talking… it helps… plain
mail is like a formal letter …email with it (smiley) makes it more fun…
(Participant A)
It is some kind of internet language…used for communication. Some people
think it has negative influence… but it is spreading between people rapidly. It
is more like expressing your feeling… I would call it something like
“expression language” (participant B)
Both participants explained that Emoticons are used for expressing your feeling in
Internet. Participant B also explained Emoticons as Internet language. This indicates
that both participants share similar perspective about Emoticons, but participant B is
more aware of the language characteristics of Emoticons.
2. What are the most common emoticons you use? What are the most difficult
emoticons you use?
Myself, I just use that face, I don’t use a lot of them… but email from my
friends… they use a lot… so I just see them a lot… I don’t know if I can
type it myself, but I can read it…I can’t recreate it myself…(participant A)
I don’t use it a lot, but usually use ^^;, and ㅡ,.ㅡ. I don’t use difficult
ones… just the basic ones…(participant B)
Both participants recognized themselves as a “not using Emoticons frequently” and
“knowing only the basic Emoticons”. This indicates that both participants think there
are certain groups of people who use more diverse and complex Emoticons, and they
are not part of it. But certain Emoticons, which they think is “basic” could be
“complex” to different group of people. For example, “ㅡ,.ㅡ”, which is a basic
Emoticon for participant B, could be difficult to understand for participant A.
3. Do you sometimes experience difficulty in understanding some emoticons in
everyday life (such as email, chatting, instant message)?
Yeah, sometimes I just to have turn my head around, but usually I can
figure it out…or from the context…sometimes it’s not straight
(participant A)
I think most of the people in my age will understand it….If I see an
Emoticon, I can just feel it. But older people might have problem with
that… because they don’t know the specific background culture. If you
don’t watch Simpson, it is difficult to understand ******:-). I think we
understand it because we share the culture…But I once chat with a girl
in the middle school. I could only understand 70% of the words she
was using… I had to decode it with my friends…(participant B)
Participant A and B explained that they are able to decode most of the Emotiocns
even if they don’t know it at first. Participant B explained that this ability to decode
Emoticons is because people share similar culture, which is embedded in Emoticons.
Participant B also explained that if people do not share the similar culture, they could
have difficulty in communicating.
4. What do you think about peoples’ use of emoticons?
It adds something to the meaning… context, so it’s part of language, it
makes difference… kind of expanding language….I think it’s part of
language…different kind of different function… it’s adding meaning…
(participant A)
I’m not against it (Emoticons), but I don’t think it’s good to overuse it….
Internet limits our expression… only in letters…but Emoticons helps us
to show our feelings…I think it will grow up, because younger
generations are growing up with this Emoticons… and they will
continue to use it when they grow up… So I think it will expand until
some new technology comes out… some kind of technology that will
bring a new type of communication… But at this point, it is their culture.
(participant B)
Participant A thought Emoticons have a role of supporting the main language, and it
could be understood as an “expanding language”. Participant B thought Emoticons will
continue to grow because it is already the part of people’s culture. Both participants
thought that Emoticons will coexist with the standard language because of its supportive
role.
5. Discussion / Conclusion
The survey result indicates that the age difference influences some parts of Emoticons
literacy. Younger age group found more correct meanings of the Emoticons if it was
basic Emoticons or Emoticons related to culture. But the age difference didn’t influence
Emoticons literacy when participants had to deal with more difficult, sophisticated
Emoticons. This result shows that younger students are more frequently exposed and
used to certain Emoticons than the older students. The interview explains that
Emoticons are part of culture. Different age groups develop their own culture. And this
cultural difference brings discrepancies between age groups in understanding Emoticons.
Both age groups experienced similar difficulty in finding a new and sophisticated
Emoticon. This similarity indicates that younger group of students face similar difficulty
to the older group of students when they have to deal with Emoticons that are not part of
their culture. The ability to understand Emoticons is deeply related to culture. The
Emoticons literacy should be understood in the context of the cultural difference
between the individuals and the Emoticons.
Culture of
the individual
Emoticons
Literacy
Culture embedded
in the emoticons
This research focuses on finding the differences of Emoticons literacy between two
different age groups. The survey result shows that there are significant differences in
certain areas. But these differences come from the cultural background that each age
group possesses. The ability to decode new and sophisticated Emoticons did not show
significant difference. This result indicates that Emoticons should be understood in the
context of Internet language reflecting culture.
This study also reflects how people think about Emoticons and language. Language
could be defined as a “system of communication consisting of a set of small parts and a
set of rules which decide the ways in which these parts can be combined to produce
messages that have meaning (http://dictionary.cambridge.org)”. Emoticons share some
perspectives of this definition. But the relationship between Emoticons and language
needs further research.
References
Acronyms, Emoticons & Smilies page. (2002).
http://www.muller-godschalk.com/emoticon.html
Cknow Definitions/Acronyms/Abbreviations. (2001).
http://www.cknow.com/ckinfo/emoticons.htm
Fahlman, E, S. Smiley Lore :-). http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/sefSmiley.htm
Rivera, K., Cooke, J. N., & Bauhs, A. J. (1996). The effects of emotional icons on
remote communication. Proceedings of the CHI '96 conference companion on Human
factors in computing systems : Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Tamosaitis, N. (1994). Net talk. Ziff-Davis press: Emeryville, California.
Walther, B. J., & D'ddario, P. K. (2001). The impacts of emoticons on message
interpretation in computer-mediated communication. Social Science Computer Review,
19, (3), 324-347.