1 Introduction

Except for only text, people can use text with emoticons in Instant Messenger. Furthermore, people can also use stickers. In this study, the stickers in Instant Messenger LINE is to be examined. How can people use stickers in their conversation? How the stickers are impacted by individual difference and social context? Present studies rarely talked about stickers, which are new nonverbal cues for people. This study tried to realize the stickers. In order to provide designer to design more and more stickers, which are useful for person when they communicate with others.

1.1 Social Interaction

Social interaction refers to the way people interact. Blumer interprets fashion’s origin as an example for social interaction. Fashion is from people’s tastes. Tastes is an experience for the product, and the process of taste is from ambiguous to explicit. The shaping of taste is under the context of social interaction by others’ responses [1]. In this framework, people will have a similar taste experience, and to develop common taste feeling. Based on social interaction, people could shape their communication through information exchange. Of course, emoticons and stickers are included on the online communication.

1.2 Online Relationship

In the social information processing theory, Walther proposed two points. One point is that people will adapt communication environment, although they use only text in the online communication environment. The other is that people have similar communication effect between real life and virtual environment when they have sufficient time to communicate online [2]. As more and more pictures, like photos or image icons, appear on the virtual environment, these information bring positive communication effect in the past literatures. Related study indicate visual presentation makes a significant influence for people. In the results of study, persons post more pictures, images which are their favorites, and they will receive more amount of “likes” and amount of comments [3].

Social information processing theory based on the basic theories of the interpersonal relationship. People reduce uncertainty for themselves and relationships. Furthermore, they do more self-disclosure to develop relationship with others. Empirical studies about online communication indicate three emphases. The first is that people do more self-disclosure to reduce their uncertainty [4]. The second is that people do more self-disclosure to improve interpersonal intimacy [5–9]. The final is that people, who do more self-disclosure, have more truthfulness and respect from others. Moreover, people disclose honesty, the relationship with acquaintances could be maintained [10, 11].

1.3 Nonverbal Communication

Nonverbal communication refers to three dimension: communication environment, communicators’ appearance and communicators’ behavior [12]. In the virtual environment, nonverbal cues are complex, because nonverbal cues are integrated reality, social context and virtual environment [13]. There are variety of forms for the nonverbal cues in the online environment, including symbols, images, pictures, time information etc. In this study, Stickers of Instant Messenger is a type of image, and they are used in the conversation with the corresponding text. So stickers are considered as nonverbal cues.

In the past studies, online nonverbal cues, like punctuation, are viewed as one type of emotion expression, attitude utterance, disagree mitigation, the topic of conversation extended and the maintenance of friendship [7]. Emoticons, compared to languages, can be regarded as a form of dialogue, its placement is systematic, and it may be at the beginning of a dialogue, end of a dialogue, dialogue halfway or appearing alone. The usage of the rules doesn’t fixed, and it may be regarded as pause, the invitation of responses, punctuation, but most of them are used to be an utterance interrupted [14]. Related literatures about emoticons refer to emoticon have a few functions: to enhance effect of communication [15–18], to make communication more harmonious environment and promote interpersonal intimacy [19, 20], to enhance a sense of confidence between the communicators [21].

1.4 Social Context and Individual Difference

Communication environment impacts individual’s emotion, discourse selection and behavior. People evaluate environment no matter which place. People affect the environment, and also be affected by the environment. There are six perceptions of environment, like perception of formality, warmth, privacy, familiar, constraint and distance [12]. Some literatures refer to the relationship between social context and emoticons. The first is that people in the social emotional context uses more emoticons than in the context of social tasks. People, who in the negative, task-oriented situations, uses the least emoticons. Secondly, people who in the workplace, tries to use more positive emoticons.

Besides the factor of social context, some literatures indicates that individual difference is another factor which affect human’s behavior. Some literatures are examined by McCrae and Costa s’ five factor model which includes neuroticism which means that someone is anxious, insecure, and nervous frequently; extraversion which means that someone is social, humor and friendly. According to the literatures, extraverts tend to use social media frequently, because of their social personality, and neurotic persons tend to use social media frequently as well, because of their belonging sense. Therefore, this study uses extraversion and neuroticism to be the factors of individual difference.

1.5 Research Question and Research Hypothesis

  • Q1: How the differences of social contexts impact the usage of stickers?

    • H0 1-1: The differences of social contexts have a significant influence on the amount of stickers.

    • H0 1-2: The differences of social contexts have a significant influence on the personality stickers.

    • H0 1-3: The difference of social contexts have a significant influence on the appearance stickers.

    • H0 1-4: The differences of social contexts have a significant influence on the story stickers.

    • H0 1-5: The differences of social contexts have a significant influence on the atmosphere stickers.

    • H0 1-6: The differences of social contexts have a significant influences on the emotion stickers.

    • H0 1-7: In the social contexts of casual conversation, the usages of each types of stickers have a significant difference.

    • H0 1-8: In the social context of private conversation, the usages of each types of stickers have a significant difference

    • H0 1-9: In the social context of business conversation, the usages of each types of stickers have a significant difference.

  • Q2: How the personality impact the usage of stickers?

    • H0 2-1: Extravert people have a significant influence on the usage of stickers.

    • H0 2-2: Neurotic people have a significant influence on the usage of stickers.

  • Q3: Social contexts and personality can impact the usage of stickers together.

2 Research Method

The aim of this study is to examine the usage of stickers in Instant Messenger LINE. Moreover, social context and personality are two factors which evaluate the effect of behavior. The main research methods are focus group, affinity diagram and online survey. In the first stage, focus group and affinity diagram are used to realize which types of stickers could be used by persons and to realize which types of social contexts could be happened in LINE. In the second stage, online survey are used to collect the usage of stickers.

2.1 Focus Group and Affinity Diagram

Researcher invite 15 respondents to execute focus group and affinity diagram. These respondents were between 20 to 30 years old. All respondents were recruited in Taiwan and used LINE frequently. The results of this stage are as follows, three social contexts: chat, privacy and business, five types of stickers: personality, appearance, story, atmosphere and emotion. The definitions for each types of social contexts and stickers are listed in the table [Table 1]. In the focus group, we focus on asking respondents the aim of sticker usage when they communicate with others in LINE. Related questions are as follows: Why do you like to use these kind of stickers? What kind of reasons are important for you to choose the stickers? When do you use stickers?

Table 1. The definition of social contexts
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2.2 Questionnaire

This survey was released on Facebook from July 24, 2015 to August 8, 2015. All respondents should use LINE 1 h a day in order to collect regular persons’ data. The number of valid survey is 452. There are three parts in the questionnaire, the first part is to record stickers, and each social context has five options which are the types of sticker. The second part is the scale of personality extraversion and neuroticism from McCrae and Costa s’ five factor model. The third part is personal information. The process of stickers’ record which can be divided into six main steps. At the beginning, respondents should open LINE application in the mobile phone. In the second step, looking through the dialogue list and selecting two friends’ dialogue. In the third step, finding stickers in the conversation to categorize social contexts and stickers’ types which are according to the definition for the social contexts and stickers’ types [Table 2, Fig. 1]. In the fourth step, recording the types of social context and stickers in the survey. In the final step, repeating the above steps until two friends’ stickers are recorded during three day’s conversations.

Table 2. The definition of stickers
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Fig. 1.
figure 1

The sample of the screenshot of LINE from the respondent (Source of sticker: LINE store https://store.line.me/home/zh-Hant).

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3 Results

This study used Two-way ANOVA to examine the impact of social context and personality toward the usage of stickers in LINE. In the first research question: social contexts affect the usage of stickers. The hypothesis 1-1 is valid, people use the most of stickers in chat context, and following is in privacy context and the least is in business context. The hypothesis 1-2 is valid, people use the most of personality stickers in chat context, and following is in privacy context and the least is in business context. The hypothesis 1-3 is valid, people use the most of appearance stickers in chat context, and following is in privacy context and the least is in business context. The hypothesis 1-4 is valid partially, people use more story stickers in chat context than in business context; people use story stickers in chat context as much as in privacy context; people use story stickers in privacy context as much as in business context. The hypothesis 1-5 is valid partially, people use more atmosphere stickers in chat context than in business context; people use more atmosphere stickers in privacy context stickers than in business context; people use atmosphere stickers in chat context than in privacy context. The hypothesis 1-6 is valid partially, people use more emotion stickers in chat context than in business context; people use more emotion stickers in privacy context than in business context; people use emotion stickers in chat context as much as in privacy context. The hypothesis 1-7 is valid, the stickers types people used sequentially in chat context as emotion, personality, atmosphere, appearance and story. The hypothesis 1-8 is valid partially, the stickers types people used sequentially in privacy context as emotion, personality, appearance and story; the personality stickers people used as much as atmosphere stickers. The hypothesis 1-9 is valid partially, the stickers types people used in business context is as follows, emotion stickers more than personality and atmosphere; personality and atmosphere stickers more than appearance and story; personality stickers as much as atmosphere stickers; appearance stickers as much as story stickers.

In the second research question: personality affect the usage of stickers. The hypothesis 2-1 is valid partially, high extraversion person use more stickers than low extraversion person; high extraversion person use more personality stickers than low extraversion person; high extraversion person use more appearance stickers than low extraversion person; high extraversion person use more story stickers than low extraversion person; high extraversion person use atmosphere stickers as much as low extraversion person; high extraversion person use emotion stickers as much as low extraversion person; high extraversion person use more personality, appearance, story, atmosphere, emotion stickers than low extraversion person in business context; high extraversion person use stickers as much as low extraversion person in chat and privacy context. The hypothesis 2-2 is valid partially, low neuroticism person use more personality, appearance, story, atmosphere and emotion stickers than high neuroticism person in business context; high neuroticism person use stickers as much as low neuroticism person in chat, privacy context. In the third research question: Social contexts and personality cannot impact the usage of stickers together.

4 Discussion

According to the result from statistic analysis, high extraversion person tend to do more self-disclosure than low extraversion person, and more personality, appearance and story stickers are presented in LINE.

In business contexts, high extraversion and low neuroticism persons use more stickers than low extraversion and high neuroticism persons. People use stickers no difference no matter whom they are in chat and privacy context.

Generally speaking, the most usage of sticker is emotion type, the second are atmosphere and personality type, appearance and story type are used the least. Furthermore, persons use the most of stickers in chat contexts, and persons use the fewest of stickers in business contexts.

5 Conclusion

People exchanges information every day, one of the most important factors which impact human communication is nonverbal communication. People disclosure themselves in order to reduce uncertainty and increase intimacy. Personality and social contexts not only impact human behavior in real life, but also impact the stickers of online exchange.

Nowadays, stickers becomes a new nonverbal clues in Instant Messengers, especially in LINE. In this study, stickers not only can be an emotional expression in LINE, but also can be other clues which include personality, appearance, story, atmosphere and emotion as the results from this study. Personality is to show individual personality, interests, preference and so on; appearance is to show favorite style of stickers; story is the sticker which retrieved from the characters of fictional story or the characters in the real world, such as cartoons, animation; atmosphere is the sticker make a sense of atmosphere or scene; emotion is to express emotion fully, such as happy, anger, sadness and so on. In addition, there are three types of social contexts in LINE which are the result of interview in this study, such as chat, privacy and business.

Based on Walther’s information processing theory, people would be able to adapt text-based computer-mediated environment. Extend to this theory, image becomes more and more popular in Instant Messenger environment. Stickers is the image-based form, differ from the original Instant Messenger based on texts and emoticons, exchange over and over among people who talk In LINE. This study uses two factors in the McCrae and Costa s’ five factor model in order to explore the individual difference for the exchange of stickers, which are extraversion and neuroticism. One is Extraversion means someone is social, humor and friendly. The other is Neuroticism means someone is anxious, insecure, and nervous frequently. This study also uses social contexts to examine the difference of the usage of stickers. People would be able to adapt the text-based online environment by using lots of stickers.

Emotion type is one of the most usage of stickers, the second are personality and atmosphere type. It indicates that people prefer to express their emotion in LINE and it is necessary that people take emotion, personality and atmosphere for granted in the conversation. The stickers of story and appearance are used the least. However story and appearance type of stickers might not be ignore by stickers’ designers, because these types of stickers play an important role in helping people to start a new topic in conversation and find out the common interests between people.

In the year of 2015, LINE announced the global survey for the frequently usage of stickers and emoticons. In the top of 100, 48 percent of stickers and emoticons in joy and happy, 10 percent of stickers and emoticons in sad emotion, 6 percent of stickers of stickers and emoticons in angry emotion, 5 percent of stickers and emoticons in surprise emotion, 14 percent of stickers and emoticons in gesture and daily term and 16 percent of stickers and emoticons in other types [22]. It explains that the usage rate of emotional stickers is highest, especially for the positive emotion. This is similar to the result about this study.

In the study, high extraversion persons use more stickers and use more personality, story and appearance stickers than low extraversion persons. It indicates that high extraversion persons expose themselves to perform individuality more than low extraversion persons. However, there are no difference in atmosphere and emotion type of stickers’ usage between high extraverts and low extraverts. It indicates that atmosphere and emotion are two important elements in the daily conversation.

In addition, high extroversion persons use more stickers than low extroversion persons in business contexts. It is not similar to the past studies about social media which indicate high extraversion persons and high neuroticism persons prefer to use social media frequently, however high neuroticism persons doesn’t use more stickers than low neuroticism persons in this study. The reason is that people behave differently in the different social context. In business contexts, which makes people feel formal and serious, high neuroticism persons would be more sensitive than low neuroticism persons so that high neuroticism persons use fewer stickers than low neuroticism persons in business contexts. Comparing to face to face conversation, the usage of LINE makes grey area bigger which could impact the effect of execution of business. Moreover, the stickers are not suitable for communicating with superior in the official workplace, because of the funny appearance. It explains the least usage of stickers for high neuroticism persons in business contexts.

Apart from the individual difference, the social context also be a factor in this study to examine the usage of stickers. People use the most of stickers in chat, next is in privacy context, the least usage of stickers is business context. Similarly, people use five types of stickers in business context and other two types of social context, however the most difference between business and other two types: chat and privacy is that people use the least of stickers in business context. This result reflects on the individual difference in the usage of stickers. According to the result, high extroversion persons and low neuroticism persons use fewer stickers than low extroversion persons and high neuroticism persons.

To sum up, people make relationships with others through exposing themselves. In the computer-mediated environment, people communicate with other people with text, emoticon and stickers. Personality and social context are two main factors to examine the usage of stickers in LINE.