It’s World Emoji Day tomorrow (July 17) and a new report has revealed emojis are transforming the way people around the world are expressing themselves including here in Australia.
Fun fact: World Emoji Day is on July 17 based on the calendar emoji on iPhones which has always displayed that date.
According to the Global Emoji Trends report, more than half of all Australians have increased their emoji use in the past 12 months with almost all users (91 per cent) acknowledging that emojis make it easier to express themselves.
Nearly half (49 per cent) said emojis can communicate their thoughts and emotions better than they can with words.
The report, which surveyed more than 7,000 emoji users worldwide, shows how and why we use emojis to express ourselves across cultures whether it’s dating or workplace communication and everything in between.
Globally the most popular emoji is the face with tears of joy among males and females.
In Australia, the thumbs up emoji was the most widely used followed by the global favourite face with tears of joy.
Two thirds of respondents said people who use emojis appear friendlier and funnier with 58 per cent saying they are more likely to respond to a message which contains an emoji.
Half of Australians also agreed that communicating with emojis had a positive impact only their mental health.
During the COVID pandemic, 41 per cent said communicating with emojis made them feel happier and less lonely (23 per cent).
“The results from the 2021 Global Emoji Trend Report have demonstrated that these cute, colourful pictograms are full of communication power,” says Paul D. Hunt, Typeface Designer & Font Developer at Adobe.
“The statistic I am most encouraged by is that 88 per cent of users are more likely to feel empathetic toward someone if they use as emoji.
“Empathy is the most important aspect of communications. If we are not activity trying to empathise with one another, then we probably won’t fully understand each other’s meaning.
“Language can be very abstract, particularly when communicating digitally.
“Emojis can help approximate tone of voice, gestures and emotional reactions better than words alone.
“This is the potential strength of emoji: to help us connect more deeply to the feeling behind our messages.”
Emojis have now entered the workplace with positive results.
The report says the majority of Australians (72 per cent) agree that emojis positively impact likeability and credibility and make positive news or feedback seem more sincere.
And 68 per cent like it when colleagues use emojis to communicate at work, while two thirds (63 per cent) say emojis make them feel more connected to their team.
In fact, more than half (53 per cent) think employers should offer training for employees to know when the use of emojis is appropriate whilst at work.
