The Effect Of Emoji Usage On Psychological Distance

With the rapid development of Internet technology,Computer-Mediated Communication has become an indispensable part of people’s life.In recent years,Computer-Mediated Communication has attracted more and more attention.As an important aspect of Computer-Mediated Communication,emoji has been widely used.Existing research focuses on factors that affect the use of emojis on the Internet.There is relatively little research on the question what kind of emojis use behavior will affect Psychological representation on the Internet.Paying attention to the influence of online emoji helps to understand how interpersonal relationships in the process of network interaction are established,maintained and developed,which helps to deeply explore the development mechanism of interpersonal relationship in Computer-Mediated Communication and provide suggestions for interpersonal communication online.Psychological distance,which is a subjective experienced feeling that an event,an object or any other target can be removed from the egocentric here and now,can further predict the subsequent communication behavior.Studying the factors which will influence psychological distance will help to further refine the depth of network interpersonal research.Among the many components of network communication,the use of emojis plays an important role.A series of research results based on social information processing(SIP)indicate that the emoji is a non-verbal cue,and its appearance can contributes to add non-verbal information online.It has an important influence on the individual’s accurate understanding of information content.Emoji can effectively compensate for the lack of non-verbal information in network communication,and thus can effectively convey emotions and feelings,which will have a certain impact on the perception of psychological distance,and thus affect the establishment,maintenance and development of interpersonal relationships online.However,the research of how the use of online emoji affects the psychological distance is still lacking at present.It is difficult to accurately explain how people use t emoji to promote further interaction.Understanding the impact of interpersonal communication is of great significance.We will explore this issue through two studies:1.The effect of using online emoji on psychological distance judgment(1)The use of emoji will have an impact on psychological distance judgment.From a perceptual point of view,the psychological distance perceived by an individual using emojis is significantly reduced compared to not using emojis.(2)The use of emoji in different situations has an impact on psychological distance judgment.In task-oriented situations,the use of emojis has a greater impact on psychological distance than in social-oriented situations.2.The effect of emoji valence and quantity on the judgment of psychological distance of emoji perceiver(1)In the social context,the valence of emojis has no significant effect on the psychological distance judgment,but the number of emojis has significant effect on the psychological distance judgment.When the number of emojis increases,the psychological distance perceived by the information receiver is increased.(2)In the working situation,the number and the valence of online emoticons used have a significant impact on the psychological distance judgment.This research is based on the micro-process of social networking.With the help of Construal level theory,the influence of the use of online emoji on psychological distance is effectively discussed.This research not only helps us to understand the perceived experience accompanying information transmission and interaction in Computer-Mediated Communication,but also provides some methodological and technical suggestions for people to communicate online.