We all know that emojis have become the new language of this digital world. A new study by Thomas Dimson, a software engineer behind Instagram’s Hyperlapse app has revealed that nearly half of the text on Instagram contain emojis.
“On Instagram, emoji are becoming a valid and near-universal method of expression in all languages. Emoji usage is shifting the people’s vocabulary on Instagram and becoming an important means of expression: their use is anti-correlated with internet slang like “lol” and “xoxo.” By observing words and emoji together we were able to discern representations of both. These representations can help us better understand their semantics and find distinctive characteristics of similar symbols.”posted Thomas Dimson, a software engineer, in a company blog.
The emoji usage has increased from just around 20 percent from 2012 to 2013. Emojis includes comments, captions and the recently-introduced emoji-capable hashtags. The report states that it was the release of the iOS emoji keyboard in 2011 that started the amazing surge in emoji use on the Instagram app. As per the study, people in Finland used the most emojis in their Instagram posts, with 63 percent of the text consisting of the cartoony emoticons followed by France at 50%, the U.K. (48%), Germany (47%), Italy and Russia (45% each) and U.S. at 38%.
As per the study, the hard laughing smiley face is the most widely used emoji on the app. Instagram has also discovered that these symbols are beginning to replace internet slang like LOL and OMG. Last week, Instagram added three new filters and emoji hashtags to its mobile apps.