Emojis as Tools for Emotion Work: Communicating Affect in Text Messages

Emojis are pictures commonly used in texting. The use and type of emojis has increased in recent years; particularly emojis that are not faces, but rather objects. While prior work on emojis of faces suggest their primary purpose is to convey affect, few have researched the communicative purpose of emojis of objects. In the current work, two experiments assess whether emojis of objects also convey affect. Different populations of participants are shown text messages with or without different emojis of objects, asked to rate the message’s affective content, and indicate their confidence in their ratings. Overall results suggest that emojis of objects communicate positive affect, specifically joy. These findings are framed in the sociological theory of emotion work, suggesting that the time and effort involved in using emojis may help maintain and enhance social relationships.