<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><p>Nowadays many human interactions take place in the virtual environment. To express emotions and attitudes in computer-mediated communication (CMC) individuals use emoticons - graphic representations of emotions and ideas. Contemporary applications serving computer-mediated communication (CMC) are provided with a broad spectrum of emoticons which may be used in communication. Variety of emoticons gives users of CMC an opportunity to create unique messages and express emotions in a creative manner. This study involved 275 online respondents and aimed to verify whether the frequency of emoticons use may be predicted by the three characteristics of creativity (creative abilities, openness, independence). Bayesian regression analysis showed that creativity does not predict frequency of emoticons use in CMC. No correspondence between creativity and frequency of emoticons use may be explained by pragmatic function of emoticons as they are used to communicate efficiently with an emphasis on the sender-recipient shared understanding of the emoticons meaning. What is more, robust popularity of communication applications leads to widespread employment of emoticons by CMC users. Therefore, with growing number of emoticons users’ creative individuals may seek less common means of expressing own creativity.</p></abstract>

Nowadays many human interactions take place in the virtual environment. To express emotions and attitudes in computer-mediated communication (CMC) individuals use emoticons - graphic representations of emotions and ideas. Contemporary applications serving computer-mediated communication (CMC) are provided with a broad spectrum of emoticons which may be used in communication. Variety of emoticons gives users of CMC an opportunity to create unique messages and express emotions in a creative manner. This study involved 275 online respondents and aimed to verify whether the frequency of emoticons use may be predicted by the three characteristics of creativity (creative abilities, openness, independence). Bayesian regression analysis showed that creativity does not predict frequency of emoticons use in CMC. No correspondence between creativity and frequency of emoticons use may be explained by pragmatic function of emoticons as they are used to communicate efficiently with an emphasis on the sender-recipient shared understanding of the emoticons meaning. What is more, robust popularity of communication applications leads to widespread employment of emoticons by CMC users. Therefore, with growing number of emoticons users’ creative individuals may seek less common means of expressing own creativity.

Does the Frequency of Using Emoticons in Computer-Mediated Communication Signal Creativity?

Creativity. Theories – Research - Applications

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Nowadays many human interactions take place in the virtual environment. To express emotions and attitudes in computer-mediated communication (CMC) individuals...

Does the Frequency of Using Emoticons in Computer-Mediated Communication Signal Creativity?

Published Online: Jun 28, 2019

Page range: 66 - 76

Received: Jun 20, 2019

Accepted: Jul 09, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ctra-2019-0004

Keywords
Emoticons, Creativity, Computer-mediated communication

© 2019 Agata Niezabitowska et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Does the Frequency of Using Emoticons in Computer-Mediated Communication Signal Creativity?

Published Online: Jun 28, 2019

Page range: 66 - 76

Received: Jun 20, 2019

Accepted: Jul 09, 2019

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ctra-2019-0004

KeywordsEmoticons, Creativity, Computer-mediated communication

© 2019 Agata Niezabitowska et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

Keywords
Emoticons, Creativity, Computer-mediated communication