In an effort to quantify emoji use and break it down geographically, the team behind SwiftKey has assessed which states use certain emojis more than the other states.
SwiftKey is a predictive keyboard app that currently runs on roughly 250 million devices worldwide, learning users' typing patterns, preferred emojis and frequent expressions to become even more intuitive with time.
SwiftKey has now analyzed some data on emoji usage in the U.S., crunching the numbers for an intriguing find. The tech firm used its SwiftKey Cloud service to look at the usage of more than a billion emoji, determining the top emojis in various states across the U.S.
The interesting infographic presents itself in the form of an interactive map, showing the most popular emoji in each U.S. state. Based on this map, people in Vermont love the poop emoji, people in New Hampshire love alcohol, Californians are into lemons, sushi and ramen, but also taxis, Nevada is all about the eggplants, New Yorkers represent with the Statue of Liberty and taxis, while Louisiana is apparently a fan of skulls and violent emojis such as guns.
But these aren't, in fact, the most popular emojis in each state. In order to avoid filling a map with smileys and hearts, SwiftKey cross-referenced the list of emojis used in each state with the U.S. average to determine which emoji each state uses more than all the other states. In other words, this map is not based on the volume of use, but rather on the rate at which each emoji is used in a state compared to the U.S. average. Consequently, the map shows which "top" emoji each state uses more than other states, above the U.S. average.
"The list of emoji used most in each state was cross-referenced with the list of emoji used more than average in each state," Swiftkey states in the data summary, explaining how it determined the "top emoji per state."
To get a better idea of how each state in the U.S. uses emoji, head over to SwiftKey's website and take a look at its interactive map for the United States of Emoji.
In a similar effort, SwiftKey also updated its iPhone app with a new emoji insights feature, providing analysis for the user's own emoji usage, listing stats such as the most-used emoji or how one user's emoji use compares to others.
