Who uses emoticons? Data from 86 702 Facebook users

- We examined emoticon use in 86 702 Facebook users (59% women), aged 16-60.
- Emoticon use in Facebook status updates decreases with age.
- Women use more emoticons than do men.
- Sex and age explain more variance in emoticon use than do personality measures.
- Our results contribute to research on psychological profiles of Internet users.

Emoticons are graphical representations of emotions used in virtual communication. We explored patterns of emoticon use in a sample of 86 702 Facebook users (aged 16 to 60, 59% women). We analyzed the total number and type of emoticons posted to public Facebook feeds as a function of a user's gender, age and Big Five personality characteristics. In our sample, 90% of Facebook users employed emoticons. The most popular 15 emoticons represented 99.6% of all emoticons posted. Our results further showed that the frequency of emoticon usage was predicted mainly by age and gender, explaining 16% of the variance, whereas user's personality scores explained < 2%. These findings suggest that emoticon usage may assist in profiling user's demographic, but not necessarily psychological traits.