IN the online world, it’s very difficult to talk to people without using emojis. However, did you know that people in different age groups have totally different preferences for choosing their emojis? These telling findings are based on a report released by Tencent’s WeChat, China’s most popular messaging app, on its official weibo account Wednesday. Specifically, users who were born in the 2000s’ favorite WeChat emoji would probably be the widely used “facepalm,” rumored to be based on the famous Hong Kong movie star Stephen Chow. You also may be a night owl who doesn’t get much sleep, while iced beverages and desserts are your cup of tea. China’s post-90s WeChat users are likely to get out of bed later in the morning compared with other groups, and the emoji “face with tears of joy” may rule your online social life. Also, your reading materials have shifted from entertainment and gossip three years ago to the current relationship and lifestyle pieces. “Grin” is listed as the favorite emoji for users who were born in the 1980s. And if you were born in the 1980s, your tastes have remained the same, as you are still fond of reading news on national affairs. And “grin” is your emoji of the year. WeChat users born in the 1970s are called the optimistic group, who like to use the emoji “chuckle” and go through their moments frequently every day. Their bed time, unlike their younger peers, takes place early at 11:30 p.m. Users over 55 are the early-bird group with rich entertainment activities in WeChat platforms, such as looking through moments, reading and shopping. They like to cheer up other age groups, so their favorite emoji is “giving a thumbs-up” . The report also indicates that WeChat boasts more than 1.08 billion active users with 45 billion messages being sent and 410 million calls getting through the app each day in 2018. In addition to covering users’ socializing, WeChat has gradually penetrated into our daily lives. Compared to the year before, people used WeChat 4.7 times more to purchase public transport tickets, and 2.9 times more to pay for medical expenses. Also, the app was utilized 1.5 more times over the previous year to pay for meals, with Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen ranked as the top three cities in dining purchases through WeChat. Since the release of the report, some online users believe that their chat data has been wrongly used for big-data analysis, while others are asking where they can attain their own personalized WeChat usage reports. (SD-Agencies) | 