Medical Emoji

Welcome back. About two months ago, I devoted a blog post to the world of emoji (see Emoji). That post gives me a free card to jump right into today’s topic without passing Go or devoting space to emoji basics, like what are they.

Though it was all new to me before seeing a recent commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), collaborators affiliated with the University of London, Emojination and Unicode Consortium, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School have been promoting the use of emoji in the field of medicine.

Emoji Usage
Medicine has used visual analog scales to gauge and communicate the intensity or frequency of symptoms for some time. Since 1983, for example, the Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale has helped children communicate their level pain by showing faces ranging from happy (0, no pain) to crying (10, worst pain imaginable).

The Wong-Baker FACES Pain Rating Scale (from wongbakerfaces.org/).

The authors of the commentary point out that these visual analog scales are trademarked and carry licensing fees. They opt for emoji that are open source and nonproprietary, especially if digitally accessible. The availability of a preloaded, curated, digital set of emoji would offer standardization, universality and familiarity, increasing usage. Appropriate emoji could facilitate communication of patient symptoms, concerns and other clinically relevant information; annotate patient instructions; and much more.

Emoji would also be a valuable tool for dealing with language or verbal challenges, whether treating children, non-native speakers or patients affected by disabilities that affect their ability to communicate.

Medical Emoji Status
As described in my earlier post, there are currently 3,521 approved emoji. Of these, the authors count about 30 other than generic body part images (e.g., ear, hand, leg, foot) that could be relevant to medicine. Those 30 are the result of efforts over the past five years.

For example, syringe and pill emoji were introduced in 2015; male and female health workers in 2016; individuals with disabilities (e.g., hearing aid, cane for the blind, mechanical arm and leg) in 2017; stethoscope, drop of blood, bone, tooth and microbe in 2019; and heart and lung in 2020.

Examples of current medical emoji (from jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2783847).

The authors are actively organizing a more comprehensive and cohesive set of emoji. Two of the authors have already proposed 15 new medical emoji for the next release: intestines, leg cast, stomach, spine, liver, kidney, pill pack, blood bag, IV bag, CT scan, weight scale, pill box, ECG, crutches, and white blood cell.

Medical emoji proposed to Unicode Consortium, 2020 (from jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2783847).

Wrap Up
The authors emphasize that emoji complement traditional modes of communication but carry their own constraints, such as communicating digitally, familiarity with human anatomy and simply adjusting to emoji. With medical emoji still in their infancy, however, there is a window of opportunity to shape the way this method of communication is incorporated into medical practice and research.

They recommend that the medical community begin work toward consensus on what iconography would best serve patients and the profession. Take the lead by formalizing a unified perspective on emoji relevant to the field.

Where there is currently no formal process for proposing and evaluating medical emoji, physician organization committees could be tasked with managing emoji submission and advocacy. Such a dedicated effort would enable diverse medical practitioners to participate and influence the evolution of a clinically and demographically representative set of images for widespread use.

What do you think? Would emoji work for you? Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.
Commentary on medical emoji in JAMA Network: jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2783847
Article on commentary on EurekAlert! website: www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/927717

Emoji

Welcome back. Forgive me. I’m certain most of you didn’t need my reminder, but I neglected to alert you that 17 July was World Emoji Day.

For those who may not recognize the word from Japanese, emoji or emojis (either is plural) are pictograms, logograms or ideograms and smileys used in electronic messages and web pages to add emotional cues to typed conversation.

I’ll bet you’ve seen smiley faces. Well, there are 3,521 approved emoji. In recognition of World Emoji Day, the draft candidates for the next emoji release, Emoji 14.0, were revealed along with the results of Adobe’s 2021 Global Emoji Trend Report.

Examples of candidate emoji for 14.0 release include a melting face, a face holding back tears, new handshake combinations, a gender-neutral person wearing a crown, a pregnant man, a troll with a club and coral (from emojipedia.org/emojipedia/14.0/).

Although I can’t recall adding an emoji to anything I’ve ever written, I appreciate their creativity. I’ll do my best to tell you about emoji, summarize the trend report and highlight a recent study of how the world uses emoji. To squeeze it all in, I’ll tuck ample references under the P.S.

Emoji Admin
The working list of emoji is determined by the California-based Unicode Consortium. The consortium is a non-profit corporation devoted to developing, maintaining and promoting software internationalization standards and data, particularly the Unicode Standard, which specifies the representation of text in software products and standards.

Consortium members include computer corporations, software producers, database vendors, government ministries, research institutions, international agencies and others.

Emojipedia, a member of the Unicode Consortium, is the central bank of all approved emoji. Emojipedia’s reference website documents the meaning and common usage of each emoji character.

The draft emoji announced on World Emoji Day may change prior to final approval in September. Companies such as Apple, Google and Microsoft apply stylized versions of the consortium's designs to their operating systems, vendor designs vary from those released by major vendors, and Emojipedia's draft images may be updated. The emoji will likely be seen on all platforms by June 2022.

Global Emoji Trend Report
Adobe’s Global Emoji Trend Report for 2021 is based on a survey of 7,000 emoji users in Australia, France, Germany, Japan, South Korea, the U.K. and U.S. Though details of how the survey was conducted weren’t available, I was impressed by some of the results.

Global emoji users’ top five favorite emoji (from blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2021/07/15/global-emoji-trend-report-2021.html#gs.656huw).

Global emoji users find emoji make it easier to communicate across language barriers (89% of respondents); can help spark positive conversations about cultural and societal issues (70%); and are an important communication tool for creating unity, respect and understanding (76%).

On the personal side, the users find emoji make it easier to express themselves (90%); are more likely to feel empathetic toward someone if they use an emoji (88%); and are more comfortable expressing emotions through emoji than over the phone (55%) or in-person (51%). They feel that using emoji has positively impacted their mental health (65%).

The most effective work motivating emoji (from blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2021/07/15/global-emoji-trend-report-2021.html#gs.656huw).

In the work environment, global emoji users like it when people use emoji (66%). They feel their use helps share ideas quickly (73%); can improve the efficiency of team decision-making (63%); and positively impacts likeability (71%) and credibility (62%).

How the World Uses Emoji
Researchers with the University of Southern California analyzed tens of millions of tweets, in 30 languages and countries, to evaluate how 1,700 emoji are used on Twitter in different linguistic and national contexts.

Total number of unique emoji (about 600 to 1700) in tweets of 30 different language codes in October 2016 (from www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468696421000318).

Employing rigorous statistical and informational theoretical methodologies, the researchers determined that emoji usage and diversity are strongly dependent upon both language and country, the latter having a more pronounced effect.

The popularity of emojis, globally and within a given language, seems to follow a robust trend that is language-independent. They emerge quickly, over a single day, and remain largely consistent thereafter.

Findings regarding specific emoji usage and countries, though interesting, may be out of date given that the study relied on data collected over one month in 2016.

Wrap Up
The most important study takeaway was that emoji represent the human condition; we are more alike than different. Universal emotions dominate.

To close, I’ll draw from the Global Trend Report to make the case that you and I should use emoji. Global emoji users think people who use emoji are friendlier, funnier and…get this...cooler than those who don’t (67%). Thanks for stopping by.

P.S.
Emoji:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emoji
unicode.org/standard/standard.html
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicode_Consortium
Emojipedia:
emojipedia.org/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emojipedia
World Emoji Day: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Emoji_Day
Emoji 14.0:
blog.emojipedia.org/new-emojis-in-2021-2022/
emojipedia.org/emojipedia/14.0/
www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-9794749/Heres-emoji-set-coming-smartphone-2022.html
Adobe’s 2021 Global Emoji Trend Report: blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2021/07/15/global-emoji-trend-report-2021.html#gs.656huw
Study of emoji usage on Twitter in Online Social Networks and Media journal: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468696421000318
Article on study on EurekAlert! website: www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-07/uosc-hdt071321.php