Emoji use by children and adults: An exploratory corpus study

Emoji (e.g., 🤪✈🧁) are increasingly used on social media by people of all ages, but little is known about the concept ‘emoji literacy’. To investigate different age groups’ emoji preferences, an exploratory corpus analysis was conducted using an innovative corpus-gathering method: children and adults were instructed to add emoji magnets to pre-constructed printed social media messages. The corpus (with 1,012 emoji) was coded for the number of emoji used per message, the type of emoji, their position and function in the message, and the sentiment they conveyed. Intuitions about emoji use turned out to be similar for children and adults, with greater use of facial emoji, emoji at the end of messages, emoji to express emotions, and emotional emoji to convey positive sentiment. Children’s emoji preferences were studied in more detail. Results revealed that their age, gender, smartphone ownership, and social media use related to differences in the number, position, and function of the emoji used. The data showed that older children, girls, children with their own smartphone, and children using social media exhibited a more advanced and sophisticated use of emoji than younger children, boys, and children without smartphones or social media experience. This study constitutes an important first step in exploring children’s emoji literacy and use.