Over 1 in Every 5 Tweets Contain an Emoji, New Study Reveals

Data from EmojiPedia shows that worldwide emoji use has become higher than ever. Now, over one in five tweets contain an emoji. Back in 2019, an emoji was found in roughly one in every six tweets; and in 2014, only around 10% of the tweets were packed with one.

More than 6.7 billion tweets (comprising ten years of worldwide Twitter data) were evaluated for this study. The findings were charted on a month-by-month basis.

It was found out that for every elapsed month in 2021, more than one in five tweets included at least one of the 3,521 approved emojis. The latest findings reveal that 20.69% of tweets have at least one emoji.

And if the aforementioned stats are any indication, it’s that July 2021 is on its way to claim the highest percentage of emoji usage ever since Twitter first came into existence.

Shedding light on the Twitter data of the last five years, it’s noticeable that since the end of 2018, emoji usage has witnessed a considerable bump from the previous December to the following July. This increase generally comes after a drop at the start of each year once people stop tweeting Christmas and New Year-related emojis.

From July 2016 to July 2021, global emoji use has risen from 14.5% to 20.69%, amounting to a relative increase of more than 40%.

It’s worth mentioning that with an increase of 2.79% (relative 18.87%), the biggest year-on-year growth in emoji usage happened between 2018 and 2019.

Despite the emoji usage being at an all-time high currently, the increase between 2020 and 2021 wasn’t as high as that between 2018 & 2019 or the one between 2019 & 2020 (2.58%). A possible reason for it is the maturing of emojis in digital interactions, indicating consistent usage down the line. Also, the pandemic may have had a considerable part in hindering the growth of emoji usage.

Speaking of the pandemic, the use of the Syringe emoji (💉) has been gaining immense popularity since before the pandemic was unleashed. Now used to represent the COVID-19 vaccination
worldwide, the syringe emoji was initially used in tweets pertaining to blood donation in Japan.
Read next: The State of Internet Scams 2021
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