Phone, Egglant, Smiley. If you understand that, congratulations, because a new study claims singles who use emoji to communicate have more sex. Match.com’s annual Singles in America Survey asked 5,675 single Americans ages 18 and older about their dating habits. Of the pool, 31% met their last first date online. The study shows that emoji users in their 20s, 30s and 40s were more likely to report having sex at least monthly than non-emoji users. A possible explanation could be that emoji are more self-expressive and in turn more sexual, Helen Fisher of Rutgers University, who helped Match.com develop the survey, told USA Today.
Singles’ favorite emoji? The winky face. Their least-favorite emoji is the shrugging girl. Hey, live a little, singles! There’s a great big emoji world out there, including NSFW sexting-specific emoji.
The survey also illustrated how tech has changed the dating game in highly specific ways: 30% of single men and 26% of single women now expect an immediate text response. However, singles are also turned off when they receive a second text before they respond to the first. It’s tricky out there, people. Embarrassed monkey face.
Most perplexingly, the survey also coined something called the “Clooney Effect,” in which men seek independent women and women set the tone in relationships. Apparently, thanks to human rights attorney Amal Alamuddin and her new trophy husband George Clooney, 87% of men only now want to date someone who is more intellectual. What’s the most intellectual emoji, do you think?
READ MORE: Study: Women With Guy Friends Have More Sex
