The Changeable Screen: A Study On The Influence Of Emoticons On Youth Interpersonal Communication Behavior

In the era of face-to-face communication,Goffman used the theather theory to summarize the behavioral characteristics in the situation of interpersonal communication.People perform and assume different roles according to different situations in order to achieve the image they want to appear in front of others.In the era of electronic media where television and broadcasting prevailed,Merowitz proposed the media situation theory,which believed that the change of media would further affect the situation of people’s performance,and then affect people’s social interactive behavior.So in the era of mobile Internet,emoticons have become a common chat medium when people communicate online,and what impact has it brought to the situation of interpersonal communication? How people’s specific social behaviors have changed.This paper focuses on the in-depth research on the behavior of individuals using emoticons to perform on the We Chat platform.Through semi-structured interviews,20 interviewees were interviewed to obtain experience materials,and combined with the participation observation method to go deep into the social situation of emoticons in order to obtain direct first-hand experience material.The analysis theory of this paper mainly uses Merowitz’s media situation theory and Goffman’s theather theory to analyze the changes in the communication situation of emoticons in social communication and the changes in communication behavior brought by emoticons to people,so as to reveal the habitual behavior of people.The influence of emoticons on people’s communication situations.Finally,I hope to put forward the adaptability and discomfort of theather theory in the new media background,and at the same time provide a new thinking dimension for people to use emoticons for social communication and performance presentation.The study found that the situation of emoticons socialization is divided into four areas,the foreground is the chat interface,the middle platform is the chat input box,the background is the emoticons favorites,and the deep background is the location of the body.In the process of people using emoticons for online interpersonal communication,the characteristics of emoticons make people go beyond conveying feelings and reshape the relationship between traditional situations and behaviors.The emoticons make people’s front-end performances disguised,perfunctory and soft,and has a preview and buffering middle stage-chat input box,which reduces the risk of people sending emoticons mistakenly.People can reserve and manage emoticons,make adequate preparations for the performance in the front stage,and the flesh in the backstage manipulates the completion of these series of behaviors.At the same time,the screen that divides each situation is both informational and material.It isolates multiple chat front-end interfaces from each other,and makes the front,middle and back stage intertwined,and users can cross different areas at the same time.These studies hope to help people use emoticons better for online interpersonal communication.