Hashtags and emojis – How social media influences children’s use of language

The internet and social media are having a profound impact on how children communicate and express themselves, offline as well as online. While it is often assumed that social media and text speech will have a detrimental effect on young people’s communication skills, others argue that children use these new additions to the English language in a creative and innovative way. Oxford University Press recently announced ‘hashtag’, the term for the symbol ‘#’ used to tag posts on social media, as children’s word of the year. The decision was based on analysis of 120,421 short stories written by children under 13 for the 500 Words competition, run by Oxford University Press and BBC Radio 2.
The symbol is most commonly associated with social media platforms such as Twitter and Instagram. According to Ofcom, 36% of children 12-15 used Instagram in 2014 and 28% used Twitter. Oxford University Press however argues that the use of ‘hashtag’ has grown out of its origin and is now used widely by children in both written and spoken offline communication. Hashtags were used extensively in children’s stories for dramatic effect, to increase tension or add comment or emphasis to a story or statement. The influence of social media and technology was also evident in other aspects of children’s stories. Bloggers, vloggers and Youtubers featured in several stories, as did online trolls and selfies.
Host of the 500 Words competition Chris Evans said children “are so often at the forefront of both adopting, and adapting to, new language trends and using them in all manner of inventive ways.”
Emojis are another interesting aspect of children’s online communication. The use of emojis has grown rapidly in recent years and Professor Vyv Evans from Bangor University claims it is evolving faster than ancient languages such as hieroglyphics. Professor Evans has recently been working with TalkTalk to understand how people use emojis to communicate and found that eight out of ten adults in the UK have used emojis. Evans further found that 72% of 18-25 year olds sometimes find it easier to communicate their feelings and thoughts using emojis rather than words. This is likely to also be the case for younger children, some of whom may still find written communication difficult.
The popularity of emojis has also been harnessed by brands in efforts to reach the Generation Z demographic, loosely defined as children born after the turn of the century who grew up in an increasingly digitally connected world. As smartphones and other mobile devices become more prolific the use of emojis in marketing communication has become more common. According to eMarketer there are now nearly two billion smartphones users in the world, and young people are at the forefront of these trends. In 2014 20% of 8-11 year olds and 65% of 12-15 year olds owned a smartphone, according to Ofcom.
Emojis are also believed to help children communicate difficult feelings. A Swedish children’s rights charity recently created a set of emojis depicting people suffering from domestic violence in the hope that these will help children who otherwise will feel unable to communicate their feelings and seek help. The charity BRIS (Children’s Rights in Society) says it hopes the emojis will “make it possible for kids and young people to talk about situations where they felt bad or wrongly treated without having to put words on the situation.” By transcending language barriers, emojis such as these can also be used across different countries, or by children with limited language abilities.
Although trends in digital technology are often presumed to be global there are many local nuances to how children and adults use social media. A recent report by keyboard software provider SwiftKey found that the use of emojis varies depending on geographic location. The report found that French mobile users post four times as many heart emojis as the global average, while Arabic users are four times as likely to use flowers or plant emojis. Russians were found to use three times as many romantic emojis whereas Americans posted the most skulls, birthday cakes and LGBT emoji. Not surprisingly, happy faces were the most commonly used emoji, making up 45% of all emoji use.
Social media and mobile technology will no doubt continue to influence how children and young people communicate. For those of us who work with children the challenge then becomes how we communicate with them in order to maximise their opportunity to express themselves and have their voices heard.
Siv Svanaes is Associate Director at Family Kids & Youth