21 Century Emoji’s:

st

Emotional Insights of
Facebook Users
 21ST CENTURY EMOJI’S: EMOTIONAL INSIGHTS OF
FACEBOOK USERS
   
 
A Qualitative Research Paper presented to the Senior High
School of Pototan National Comprehensive High School
  
 
 
In partial fulfillment of the Course Requirement for Practical
Research 1A for the Computer System Servicing Strand
 
 
 
MEMBERS:

Tavarra, Gianena C.
Pineda, Christian P.
Consabo, Joemarie T.
Saborda, Czarina P.
Parreño, Anna Rose M.
Ella, Trisha Mae R.
 
Chapter I
 This chapter presents the introduction, statement of the problem, purpose of the
study, significance of the study, definition of terms and scope and limitation of the study.
 
INTRODUCTION
 
We use social media not only to share information, but also to express emotions. The
set of multi-cultural Facebook (FB) posts from public media pages, the readers’ reactions
and the emoji’s contained in the comments should be dealt with. It is argued that this data
set - one that can be up-scaled in size, in genres, and in languages/cultures - is a useful
and cheap resource for investigating the types of emoji’s used in different emotional
contexts (Tian, 2017).
 Emoticons, such as “;)”, are representations of facial expressions using
punctuation symbols. They were first used by the computer scientist Scott
Fahlman in 1982 as a “joke marker” (Fahlman, 2012). Recently, emoticons
have been gradually replaced by emoji’s, which are graphic symbols
representing facial expressions (e.g. smiling), gestures (e.g. thumbs up),
objects (e.g. vehicles) and even actions (e.g. dancing). They have gained
popularity rapidly in smartphone texts, emails and social media. On certain
platforms (e.g. Instagram), in some countries (e.g. Finland and France), over
half of all online messages contain emoji’s, and this trend is going up
worldwide (Dimson, 2015).
 Emoji’s can be regarded as a language for graphical expression of emotions,
and have been widely used in social media. They can express more delicate
feelings beyond textual information and improve the effectiveness of computer-
mediated communication. Recent advances in machine learning make it possible
to automatic compose text messages with emoji’s. However, the usages of
emoji’s can be complicated and subtle so that analyzing and predicting emoji’s is
a challenging problem (Zhao P. & Jia J. 2018). Furthermore, emoji are actual
icons that appear on the keyboard and can be used in texting digital
communication media. As previously mentioned, digital communication users
had used emoticons before emoji were invented.
 Consequently, many platforms exploit emoticons by allowing
them to be used to input emoji. Considering emoji as a
communication language used on digital media necessitates a
theoretical investigation regarding the impact of this language on
users and how it contributes to related human science areas, such
as psychology, sociology and linguistics, as well as health and
marketing (Hakami, 2017).
 One of the biggest problems with the “Like” button is that it was very
limiting when responding to a friend who is going through a tough time. For
example, “liking” a photo about someone that has lost a loved one feels
inappropriate. That is why many people suggested Facebook should make a
“dislike” button. Under these circumstances, Facebook users will now

It is in this problem that the researchers would like to determine the kind of
reactions that are usually used by Facebook users and how they reflect their
emotions in using the different kinds of emoji’s. Furthermore, how they use
these emoji’s as their language of communication.
 
Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study is to determine the emotional insights of
Facebook users among learners in Pototan National Comprehensive High
School.
 
 
Statement of the Problem
 
This will be conducted to determine the emotional insights of Facebook
users among learners of Pototan National Comprehensive High School.
Specifically, this study sought to answer the following questions:
 
1.How will the different posts show their emotions?
1.1. What kind of post makes you happy? Why?
1.2. What kind of post makes you amazed? Why?
1.3. What kind of post makes you sad? Why?
1.4. What kind of post makes you angry? Why?
1.5. What kind of post makes you scared? Why?
2. Why do they reflect their emotions using emoji’s?
2.1. Do you reflect your emotions in Facebook by
using emoji's? Why?
3. How do they use emoji’s in expressing their thoughts and
feelings?
3.1. What kind of emoji's do you often, sometimes, and never
use? Why?
3.2. Do you believe that emoji's are appropriate to be use for
expressing one’s feeling or thought? Why?
Significance of the Study

The result of the study will provide specific information about the
emotional insights of Facebook users among learners in Pototan National
Comprehensive High School.

The result of the study will be beneficial to the following person:

1. Other Facebook users. This study will show their insights on how they
use emoji’s to express their thoughts and emotions.
2. Future Researchers. This study will give an idea and specific
information to the future researchers about emoji reaction.
RELEVANT THEORY

The social-cognitive theory is a theoretical perspective in

which learning by observing others is the focus of study.
Social-cognitive theory is grounded by several basic
assumptions. One is that people can learn by observing
others. Learners can acquire new behaviors and knowledge
by simply observing a model.
in the 1960s by Albert Bandura. It developed into the SCT in 1986 and posits that learning

Social Cognitive Theory (SCT) started as

occursr.

the Social Learning Theory (SLT) in the 1960s

by Albert Bandura. It developed into the SCT in
1986 and posits that learning occurs in a social
context with a dynamic and reciprocal
interaction of the person, environment, and
behavior.
Definition of Terms
 

Facebook Users- the one who has actively interacted with the

site by liking, sharing, commenting, messaging, or clicking
through another link.

In this study, these are the ten identified learners who often
use Facebook to express their thoughts and emotions.
Emotion- is a mental state associated with the nervous
system brought on by chemical changes variously associated
with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of
pleasure or displeasure (Cambridge Dictionary, 2019).

In this study, it is a feeling or thought of the participants

expressed in Facebook.
Emoji’s- can be used to express personality in your email campaigns, or on
social media (Hubspot, 2018).

In this study, it is a reaction on Facebook that participants used to express

their emotional state.
 
21st Century- is the current century of the Anno Domini era or common era,
in accordance with Gregorian calendar (Wikipedia, 2020).
In this study, it is a century where most of the participants have their own
Facebook account.
Scope and Limitation
This research will be conducted to determine the emotional insights of
Facebook users among learners of Pototan National Comprehensive High
School. The data that will be gathered within the study’s context only and shall
not be applicable to other settings.
This study will be conducted at Pototan National Comprehensive High
School, Brgy. Cau- ayan, Pototan, Iloilo.
The respondents will be the selected 10 learners of Pototan National
Comprehensive High School who are identified as “Facebook users”.
 

Chapter II
Review of Related
Literature
 
Problems Faced by Facebook User Using Emoji’s
With the widespread application of computing and the development of
technology, computer mediated communication (CMC) is infiltrating daily life to
a greater and greater extent. It has many advantages, including enhancing the
continuity of individual communication (Juhasz and Bradford, 2016), improving
the quality of relationships (Pettigrew, 2009; Perry and Werner-Wilson, 2011),
and strengthening emotional communication (Derks et al., 2008b). However, the
lack of non-verbal cues such as facial expressions, intonation, and gestures in
CMC can affect the transmission of information (Archer and Akert, 1977).
 To address this problem, communicators have devised new non-
verbal cues, such as capitalization as a substitute for shouting, multiple
exclamation points for excitement, and expression symbols for facial
expressions (Harris and Paradice, 2007; Riordan and Kreuz, 2010).
These expression symbols make up for the lack of non-verbal cues in
CMC (Tossell et al., 2012; Negishi, 2014), and are very well-suited for
social media communication (Barbieri et al., 2016c). As a result,
emoji, which are a set of expression symbols, came into being.
 Emoji are used more and more frequently in network communication, and
the way they are used is becoming more and more diversified as well. They not
only have unique semantic and emotional features, but are also closely related
to marketing, law, health care and many other areas. The research on emoji has
become a hot topic in the academic field, and more and more scholars from the
fields of computing, communication, marketing, behavioral science and so on
are studying them. This paper reviews the developmental history and usage of
emoji, details the emotional and linguistic features of emoji, summarizes the
results of research on emoji in different fields, and puts forward future research
directions.
Self-presentation and emotional expression in social media
Self-presentation and emotional expression are the focus of a considerable
amount of research on social media. Yet, while a number of studies suggest we
present ourselves in especially idealized and positive terms, the evidence for this
remains underdeveloped, particularly because few studies involve comparison
with a relevant baseline. Further, in contrast to the idea that social media inhibits
self-expression, especially negative emotions, early theories from the wider
literature on computer-mediated communication imply we may be disinhibited in
social media, or more liberated to express ourselves, including negative
emotions.
 Research on the emotions that stimulate information sharing or “virility” add
another layer, suggesting arousal rather than valence is key in motivating
sharing. If this is the case, status updates are likely to be more aroused, but may
not be more positive or negative.
 
Investigating the potential for miscommunication using emoji
 
Emoji’s are positive but they can also cause miscommunication
and this causes problems on not understanding the emotion delivered.
Problems could be caused by the misinterpretation of the meaning of
emoji’s.
 Many times people link their sentiments with the emoji’s which can turn
small problems to big issues. The main goal of this paper to investigate if the
variety of emoji’s can cause miscommunication. And also to study how people
interpret emoji’s and the fundamental shift of text messaging to emoticons. We
can determine the role of emoji’s in human communication, how mandatory
they have become that excess use of these are causing issues at certain
situation. A quantitative study where a survey among youngsters about their
perception, with around 5 platform presenting and the participants were asked
the emotional meaning and the sentiment of each render of the emoji’s in a
scale format, and with a number of graphs and maps the results where charted.
 And in many of the cases it was found that emoji’s can cause failure of
conversing. It was found that many people interpret the same emoji in
different ways. There were some people who thought emoji were very
positive but a few found them irritating and useless. From this study a
researcher can go in depth about emoji’s, the small complications occurring
because of emoji’s and how to solve them. The researchers can get a clear
idea and clarification about the sentiments and rendering of emoji’s. But
leaving the negative part aside, you get awareness about building the
technology in languages using emoji for the future generations.
 
Psycho emotional impact of Social media emoji’s
Emoji’s are obviously to express emotions but now they are also to
determine concepts and ideas. The emoji’s have the potential to manipulate
emotional aspects of the consumer and can also be a cause of stress and
psychological trauma. Humans are prone to emotions and the fragile minds
can get affected by some negative emoji’s or representations especially on
social media. So the author suggests a more cautious usage of emoji’s. From
the research we can study that the impact of emoji’s is high and these emoji’s
need to be softened for spreading positive vibes among people and not to
distress them.
 The emoji’s can actually adverse the emotional and psychological effects
on the users. Emoji’s are used along with text but their graphical meanings is
left to the recipients how they take it.

The Impact of emoticons on affect interpretation in Instant Messaging

Emoticons now have become a part of our culture. Smart phone or social
media without emoji’s is unimaginable. They affect the intensity of instant
messages and time saving they are at situations. Emoticons were actually
introduced to add some humor to conversations. But now they have an important
place in a user’s mind.
 Gone are those times where we use exclamation marks and punctuation
marks now it’s the era emoticons, which are used after every sentence as an
accelerator to the messages sent. The analysis also proved that emoticons had a
higher impact and among the emoticons it’s the positive emoji’s which have a
higher impact it boosts up the messages. And from this research we can learn
that, despite the very normal simple instant messages emoticons can make a
big difference in how emotionally they take messages with emoticons. It might
create some problems in communication as the usage and reading becomes less
and graphics become more still they are considered very significant for
messaging among the users.
Impact of Facebook Reactions to the feed
 
Facebook’s algorithm is a complicated beast. And now it seems that Reactions
are further muddying those waters. After much user speculation, Facebook has at
last confirmed that using Reactions influences the way a user’s News Feed looks.
It seems Facebook’s algorithm puts more weight on Reactions—love, ha-ha,
wow, sad, and angry—over Likes to decide what content rises to the surface of a
user’s News Feed.
 Facebook gave their rationale in a recent statement to Mashable: “Over the
past year we’ve found that if people leave a Reaction on a post, it is an even
stronger signal that they’d want to see that type of post than if they left a Like
on the post. So we are updating News Feed to weigh reactions a little more than
Likes when taking into account how relevant the story is to each person. “While
Facebook currently weights all Reactions the same, apparently one reaction
trumped them all in 2016. Given the traumatic year that was 2016, you’d think
the sad reaction would top them all. Victoriously though, it was the Love button
that (fittingly) got the most love—accounting for over half the Reactions used to
date. So, there you have it.
 As Geoff Teehan notes, Reactions has been a labor of love for the Facebook
team—one that it seems we users are grateful for. As the Facebook team
continues to refine its Reactions algorithm, brands should assume that listening
(and responding) to user reactions on posts will become increasingly important
to social success.
Sociological Aspect
Recent studies have shown that emoji are not just representations of affective
attitudes; they play various roles related to sociology. Through emoticons, and
similarly emoji, people can express their intentions, sociocultural differences and
identities (Derks, Bos, & Von Grumbkow, 2007; Schnoebelen, 2012; Park et al.,
2013).
 Many researches have further explored the role of digital emoji usage in
society and culture. Kelly and Watts (2015) conducted a study that
interviewed 20 culturally diverse participants about the different uses of emoji
in digital textual communication with strong personal linkages. The study
found that, besides conveying emotions, emoji are used for other purposes,
like establishing conversations, enabling playful interactions and creating
confidential uniqueness within a relationship. In fact, emoji supports the
possibility to express diversity in many forms, such as race, gender, religion or
ethnicity.
 
Linguistics Aspect
 
Emoji is changing our speech patterns. In recent years, text emoticons have
been profoundly investigated and considered to be the way of conveying
thoughts and feelings by simulating nonverbal signs in speech (Rezabek &
Cochenour, 1998; Wolf, 2000; Crystal, 2006).
Nonverbal information is the piece of information that the human brain
processes and recognizes as an emotional interaction when perceiving an
emoticon or an emoji (Yuasa, Saito, & Mukawa, 2011). People read these
picture characters (i.e. emoji) as emotional information and not words; thus,
texting with emoji is as important as texting with words to clearly articulate
the meaning of messages via digital communication. Interestingly, linguists
have found that individuals who have been prevented from using gestures
while talking become less voluble in speaking (Finlayson, Forrest, Lickley, &
Beck, 2003).
 Basically, emoji in digital communication helps represent the human
gestures, voice tones and physical expressions people do when communicating
vocally, whether using telephones or talking face to face.

Some Emoji Limitations

Many issues have been raised regarding emoji meaning and intention. Since
there is significant diversity among emoji users, the meaning and usage will
also vary. Some emoji may mislead the receiver and cause the message to be
misunderstood. Furthermore, there are many elderly’s users with sight
problems and less experience in using emoji who will not use them in their
texting.
 Chevrolet, an American automobile brand, claimed that only the
younger generation understands and widely uses emoji (Speier, 2015).
Therefore, Chevrolet made a video series called ‘Emoji Academy’, which
involved popular celebrities such as Zendaya and Ashley Benson. The
series helped make sense of emoji for less-experienced users and justified
the meaning and purpose of emoji (Speier, 2015). This attempt was a clever
approach to bridge the gap between Chevrolet’s vast audiences and to add
some personality to the brand using emoji.
 Besides some emoji technical implications, the paper has discussed
various topics and factors that contribute directly or indirectly to emoji meaning
and purpose. This paper mainly targeting designers and researchers to draw their
attention towards the influence and the effectiveness of emoji in people’s daily
lives.
Emoji have many advantages, such as reducing slang words in digital
communications, enabling emotional expression, enhancing sentiment analysis
applications and adding delightful features to a design. However, emoji has
multiple limitations which could be summarized as follows: vague meanings
may limit emoji use, and the Unicode restrictions may affect the future of emoji.
Chapter III
Methodology
  

This chapter presents the research site, population and research design of
the study.
Denzin and Lincoln (2000) claim that qualitative research involves an
interpretive and naturalistic approach: “This means that qualitative
researchers study things in their natural settings, attempting to make sense
of, or to interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people bring to
them”. Qualitative research questions are the why and wherefores rather
than asking “how often” something occur and how widespread it is.
 In this case, qualitative research is used for its characteristics is suitable
in conducting this study. This study is all about the emotional insights of
Facebook user. Qualitative research methods are being used in conducting
this study.

The main purpose of the present study is to know the emotional insights
of Facebook users using emoji’s. Thus, the researchers need to conduct an
interview to the students in order to gather data and be able to answer the
statements of the problem.
 In conducting this study, one of the important things that should be
considered is the place. In this study the researchers chose a suitable place
wherein they could easily find the respondents.

Research Site
Among five (5) public schools in Municipality of Pototan, the researcher
chose Pototan National Comprehensive High School as their location in
conducting their study. PNCHS is located at Barangay Cau-ayan, Pototan,
Iloilo where more than 4000 learners are making their dreams come true.
 This study is all about emotional insights of Facebook users, so the
researcher chose this location because this school have a number of students
that are mostly using Facebook application; therefore, it is much easier and
faster for the researcher to choose their respondents.

 Participants
Choosing a participant is very important and it should be considered in
conducting the study. The researcher will be using a sampling method that is
suitable in conducting the study.
 In this study, the researchers will use the purposive sampling wherein the
researchers will select people who could correspond to the objective of the
study. With this, the researchers will purposively select ten participants
suitable for their study who served as their respondents in the study.

Happy is a Senior High School and transfer student taken up Humanities and
Social Sciences Strand and she considered herself as a Facebook user.
Sad is a Junior High School student and a silent type of person. She is
considered herself as a Facebook user.
  

Surprise is Senior High School student who is active in class and taking up
Humanities and Social Sciences Strand and she admits that she is addicted in
using Facebook.
Angry is a person who is active in class. She is also the president in their
classroom. She is one of the people who addicted to Facebook.
Love is a Senior High School Student and an honor student taking up Food
and Beverages Stand. She is fond of using Facebook.
Like is a Senior High School student taking up General Academic Strand.
And he is a certified Facebook user.
 
  

Disgust is a person who loved dancing and also a Facebook user.

Sleepy a person who is active in her class and she is a Junior High
School student. And she is also a Facebook user.
Smirk is a Junior High School student and a tall girl. She admits
that using Facebook is her past time.
Amused is a person who is good in class and considered herself as
Facebook user.
 Selecting the respondents to be interviewed is not that hard because this
generation uses more of technology and most of the students have their own
Facebook accounts and they used it most of the time.

The researchers will use unstructured interview to gather information. In

order for the researcher to have a factual and valid results, it is important that
the respondents must answer the questions and interviews honestly. It is also
important to consider the willingness of the respondents in answering the
questions and interviews.
Research Design
The researchers would like to know the emotional insights of Facebook
users using emoji’s. With this, the researchers will use a Phenomenological
design which will tell the experiences of people. Its main goal is to make
people understand their experiences about the happenings that surrounds
them. With this, researchers will determine the emotional insights of
Facebook users.
 The researchers will use the unstructured interview to gather information
and to know the participant’s perceptions, feelings, thoughts and opinions
about the emotional insights of Facebook users. The advantage of personal
interview is that they involved personal and direct contact between
interviewers and interviewees, as well as eliminate nonresponsive rates, but
interviewers need to develop the necessary skills to successfully carry an
interview.
Instrument of the Study
Unstructured interview will be used in order to collect data. The
researchers will prepare questions that should be answered by the
respondents in their own perspective. There will be no right or wrong
answers. Individual interview will be conducted where the researchers will
ask a questions and the respondents will answer them.

 
 Appendix A
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HANK FOR SPARING YOUR PRECIO
TIME WITH US”