Emojis have a projective function for their senders: they reflect the internal state, transmit nuances of humor and experiences, replace the tone of voice, gestures and facial expressions, that is, all those non-verbal elements that are missing in textual communication, enriching the direct meaning of the words, explained the clinical psychologist, specialist of the Alter psychological platform Margarita Proshina.
As for the recipients of emojis, our brain perceives the feelings conveyed through emoticons as real emotions.
“When they are perceived, the same areas of the brain are used as to process the emotions transmitted during direct and live communication,” Proshina clarified.
For example, a “like” on a message is perceived as an agreement or confirmation, and the absence of emoji reactions can be considered inattentive and even too dry business communication.
“Emojis influence the creation of a certain image between the interlocutors, which may correspond to reality or not reflect the real characteristics of a person, but at the same time influence the attitude towards him. However, in live communication the same thing happens: with. With the help of facial expressions, gestures and other non-verbal signals we always, intentionally or not, form a certain impression of ourselves,” the interlocutor emphasized.
The only difference here is that the signals we transmit via emoji are more controllable. If the user is sad, but doesn’t want to show it, they simply won’t send a “crying” emoticon. In real life, a person can be betrayed by a trembling voice or microfacial expressions.
Proshina added that based on the emoticons that a person sends most frequently, certain characteristics of his personality (extroversion or introversion, openness or reserve), communication style (informal, relaxed or more strict, formal) and characteristics can also be assumed. sociocultural (for example). example, age). As for the last example, it is especially interesting: in particular, zoomers born between 1997 and 2012 consider pretentious artistic media to be in bad taste and therefore prefer the combination “live language + emoji”, noted the editor in head of Ferra.ru. head Evgeniy Kharitonov.
Furthermore, the expert added, the last decade is called the era of post-irony or meta-irony, when most of the jokes are pronounced in common phrases by a serious person. In online communication, this can be considered rude, so it has become customary to accompany jokes with emoji markers.
Speaking about millennials, Kharitonov said that they are generally too lazy to master the huge and ever-growing number of emojis and therefore are used to limiting themselves to “laughing bun” emojis or parentheses.
“The more parentheses, the brighter the emotion,” added the interlocutor.
At the same time, the expert noted, emoticons in the form of parentheses are common only in the CIS countries; They are not used in the United States or Europe.
