Most popular emoji on Swiftkey in the USA and Why emoji the Language of the Internet

“Data science is a fascinating area and what we are starting to realize is that we have an insight to see how people use emoji to express themselves. We are using a lot of this data to improve our product.”

CMO of SwiftKey, Joe Braidwood, in an interview with New York Daily News about Swiftkey Map

Swiftkey is a very popular alternative to using the built-in keyboard in your Apple iPhone or Google android smartphone despite the known security issues as noted in my blog article entitled “@SwiftKey for Apple iPhone and Apple iPad on Apple iTunes – Why Full Access for Predictive Typing compromises Apple iOS 8 Security”.

But exactly how popular is the use of emoji on Swiftkey?

Swiftkey in August 2015 analyzed data from some 1 billion emoji sent by Americans to determine the most popular emoji for each for the fifty states of the United states of America as reported in the article “What’s your favorite emoji? SwiftKey’s ‘United States of Emoji’ map reveals our habits”, published August 19, 2015 By Karen Tumbokon, Digitaltrends.

 

The results, which can be viewed on the diagram above, are further summarized in Swiftkey’s interactive pdf of emoji use by state.

The findings of the most used emoji, unsurprisingly, fit with known stereotypes of each state:

1.      Hawaii, uses waves, surfer, volcano, and pineapple emoji.

2.      Californians uses the sunset, sushi, and ramen emoji and taxi emoji.

3.      Vermont uses the poop and goat emojis

4.      New Hampshire uses the alcohol emoji more than any state

5.      Nevada uses the eggplant, open mouth and key.

6.      Louisiana uses the gun, skull and guitar emoji

7.      Montana uses the Santa, fishing, and monkey who hears no evil

Swiftkey is set to become the next language based on research done by Professor of Modern English Literature at of University College John Sutherland as explained in my blog article entitled “University College Research says Emojis replacing English in Communication - Internet's Universal Language in the Age of Emojis”.

Swiftkey usage is slowly catching on in Jamaica based on my personal encounters with Miconians that use Swiftkey on their smartphone. It would be interesting if Swiftkey did an interactive map for the entire world and included Jamaica, as emojis may soon start popping up in advertising in Jamaica!

Here’s the link:

Swiftkey’s interactive pdf of emoji use by state