Single folk who are looking to get a little more – ahem – action could do well to pepper their text messages with a few select emojis.
It might seem an odd leap, but according to dating website Match.com’s annual Singles in America survey (which polled 5675 non-Match users) people who use emojis have more sex than those who keep their messages to the point.
“It turns out that 54% of emoji users had sex in 2014 compared to 31% of singles who did not,” one of the study’s authors, Dr. Helen Fisher, a biological anthropologist at Rutgers University, told Time.
What’s more, the statistic was applicable across people aged between 20 and 40. So, those re-entering the dating pool after some time away could do well to brush up on their emoji skills.
The dramatic emoji findings aren’t just concerned with what goes on between the sheets, however. It seems that those fond of emojis are more in touch with their emotions, and the communication of them (which leads to sex!)
“Emoji users don’t just have more sex, they go on more dates and they are two times more likely to want to get married,” Fisher told Time.
So are emoji users more romantic, or just more likely to put themselves out there in the dating world?
In any case, emojis are a gift for those entering the new world of dating, where more than 51 per cent of us meet our partner online, and it feels like everybody you know is using dating apps such as Tinder.
As Fisher points out, texting and email writing when courting is fraught with the potential of mixed messages and the danger of reading too much or too little into what is being said. Emojis give us a work around for expressing ourselves in text form.
Though you should take care to be selective when combining emojis, which can be awfully confusing.
As the character of Ray in Lena Dunham’s hit TV show Girls tells his much younger and more tech-savvy girlfriend,
“When you just send me a text that’s all emojis, it’s very easy to dismiss you. A panda, next to a gun, next to a wrapped gift? It makes no sense!”
Use emojis, lovers, but use them with precision.
