Influence of Emojis and Emoticons in Enhancing Digital Interpersonal Communication: A Study of WhatsApp Application Users

This research intends to focus on the influence of emojis and emoticons in enhancing digital interpersonal communication of WhatsApp application users. The study is supported in the light of Media Richness Theory and survey method has also conducted as part of quantitative research design. A total of 200 students from different universities of Lahore have been selected to understand the impact of emojis and emoticons in their interpersonal communication on daily basis. The findings show  that emojis and emoticons enhance digital interpersonal communication as it fulfills the criteria of conveying facial expressions, personal emotions and variety of sign languages. Findings of the survey illustrated that an emoji helps in supporting a message's meaning. Sometimes, emojis and emoticons seem more effective and easy to respond on a matter instead of writing long texts. The study also demonstrated that emojis and emoticons also help in understanding other person's mood and the level of interest during digital interpersonal communication