Adobe's Global Emoji Report Looks At Emoji Trends

We can't get enough of emoji

By
Allison Murray
Allison Matyus
Allison Murray
Tech News Reporter
  • Southern Illinois University
Allison reports on all things tech. She's a news junky that keeps her eye on the latest trends. Allison is a writer working out of Chicago, IL, with her only coworker: her cat Norbert.
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Updated on July 15, 2021 11:19AM EDT
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Rich Scherr
Rich Scherr
Fact checked by Rich Scherr
  • University of Maryland Baltimore County
Rich Scherr is a seasoned technology and financial journalist who spent nearly two decades as the editor of Potomac and Bay Area Tech Wire.
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Adobe's latest survey shows just how far we’ve come in communicating with emoji, and what the most used ones are. 

According to Adobe’s 2021 Global Emoji Trend Report released on Thursday, 67% of global emoji users think that people who use emoji are friendlier and funnier than those who don’t. In addition, more than half of respondents (55%) said that using emoji in communications has positively impacted their mental health. 

Emoji

Getty Images/Dimitri Otis

Another stand-out finding is that 76% of global emoji users agree that emojis are an essential communication tool for creating unity, respect, and understanding. 

"I believe we respond more emotionally to imagery, and so, emoji can help approximate tone of voice, gestures and emotional reactions better with imagery than you can with words alone,”  wrote Paul D. Hunt, Adobe’s typeface and font developer and the creator of the gender-inclusive emoji, in a blog post. 

“This is the potential strength of emoji: to help us connect more deeply to the feeling behind our messages sent by digital text.”

The study also looked at the most popular emoji used today, and the 😂 came at number one among survey respondents. Other popular emoji include 👍 at number two, ❤️ in the third spot, 😘 in fourth, and 😢 as the fifth most popular. 

Emoji can help approximate tone of voice, gestures and emotional reactions better with imagery than you can with words alone.

The survey took the results from 7,000 emoji users in the US, the UK, Germany, France, Japan, Australia, and South Korea and comes just in time for World Emoji Day, which is on Saturday, July 17. 

According to Emojipedia, there are 3,521 emojis, including symbols, flags, travel and places, food and drink, smileys and people, and more. 

The most recent emoji update has been rolling out to devices this year as part of Emoji 13.1, and brought a face spiral with eyes, a heart on fire, a face exhaling, and more skin tone options for couples with a heart in the middle. 

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