Emoji use has become increasingly common in messaging, not just in personal life but also in the professional world as well—including clinical spaces. Despite the prevalence of emoji use in clinical messaging, there has been limited qualitative research on how clinicians assess this practice. To further learn about clinicians’ use and attitudes of emoji use in clinical messaging, IUCB Faculty, Investigator, Colin Halverson, PhD, conducted a series of focus groups with clinicians about their use of emoji in clinical messaging.
The study found that participants saw emoji as having several positive benefits, for instance, building rapport, softening directives, and reducing notification fatigue. However, participants also noted several concerns, such as ambiguity and informality. Many of these responses were also context-dependent—taking into consideration power hierarchies, personal familiarity, and generational differences. Emoji use was viewed as more acceptable in informal contexts and less so in high-stakes or sensitive contexts.
You can read the full article here and you can learn more about Dr. Halverson’s work with emoji here.