In honor of World Emoji Day, Top Doctors has done research on the use of emoticons by Italians: as many as 80% use them daily
Emoji have revolutionized the way we relate in chats with friends. Their success is linked to their flexibility within a discourse where speed is a fundamental aspect in order to be understood instantly without too many turns of phrase. A diffusion so disruptive that it is now universally accepted.
And as every year on July 17 we celebrate World Emoji Day, an event created to celebrate the fundamental role of emoticons in the creation of an intellectual connection and an emotional closeness between two interlocutors not always guaranteed by the use of the written word alone. A curious fact: the date chosen to celebrate World Emoji Day refers to the date on the emoticon itself.
World Emoji Day: 8 out of 10 Italians use the "smilies"
On the occasion of World Emoji Day, Top Doctors conducted a survey to understand how much Italians use emoji and what importance they assume in digital interaction. 83% of the sample uses them often or even in every virtual conversation. This shows how emoji play an important role in online interactions, so much so that it is now customary to use them even in work emails, albeit with some reservations.
Emoji: why we use them
According to the data provided by the research, 22% of respondents use smilies to joke or to be ironic, while 11% use them to summarize a concept quickly There is also a motivation more related to the emotional sphere: four out of ten people say they use emoticons to add "color" to a written conversation considered neutral and tone-deaf. In addition, many users assess the attitude of an interlocutor towards them on the basis of the use of emoticons. In fact, 17% of those interviewed consider cold or distant those who do not enrich the written conversation by using smilies, stickers and so on, while one person out of 6 admits that, in some cases, they perceive emoji as valid "spies" for interpreting the attitude of the other person, even if much depends on the situation and the context.
Emoji as an alternative communication tool
For half of those interviewed, emoji play an important role in creating an intellectual or emotional connection between two interlocutors. 33% believe they can help, but they are not essential, while, on the other hand, only 17% consider them to be absolutely useless for this purpose.
According to a quarter of those surveyed, the use of emoticons is not considered as spontaneous as non-verbal language, while for 29% the comparison makes sense because they allow the expression of moods and states of mind that do not appear in words, and finally, for 33% this is only partial, even if they do not demonstrate the same immediacy as body language.