Why moms love emoji | The Washington Post
So this next development was inevitable: emomji, the adorable adoption of emoji by mothers (and sometimes dads, too). In much the same way that Facebook has been overtaken by baby boomers — in the past three years, the number of users older than 55 has grown by 80 percent, while the number of 13-to-17-year-olds has shrunk by 25 percent — emoji is the latest technology to be adopted by parents, in part to keep up with their kids. That was made easier in September, when the iPhone’s new operating system made the installation of the emoji keyboard automatic, meaning moms no longer had to beg their children to put those little pictures on their phones.
There’s no scientific method for measuring the rise in emomji, and Apple declined to comment on the trend. But anecdotal evidence is everywhere. On Instagram, children screenshot messages laden with 
bursts of love. On Facebook, moms post 
and 
for birthdays, and 
to celebrate job promotions. And while moms use a wide range of the symbols, they are most loyal to a specific few: Idibon, a company that studies digital language trends, did a data analysis on Tumblr that revealed that some of the most frequently used emomji are the 
and 
. As the weary face shows, it’s not easy being mom.
“Maybe emojis are a generational equalizer,” says Elizabeth Plank, a 27-year-old editor at the millennial news Web site Mic. “It’s not like, ‘Ugh, Mom’s trying to be cool.’ It’s like, ‘Aw, she’s trying to speak my language.’ ”
There’s no better way to strip a tech trend of its cool than for boomers to adopt it. But with emoji, it's almost as if those little icons were created for moms in the first place. Emoji let moms lavish their kids with kisses without the public embarrassment (or slobber). They make cheesy mom-speak — “See you later, 
!” — cute. They are the perfect digital valentine. And because they are less intrusive than a phone call, emoji texts may be a more effective trick for getting busy children to respond to their mothers, says Matthew Rothenberg, the 35-year-old developer behind Emojitracker. (His father, meanwhile, is the primary emoji user in Rothenberg’s family.)
“When we were kids, my mom would write us notes on the napkins in our lunchboxes and draw hearts and smiley faces,” says Tyler Schnoebelen, a linguist and the lead data analyst at Idibon. “Now, instead of being limited to doodles, moms can ornament their notes with symbolic nudges and emblems of affection: phones, foods, umbrellas — and you know, volcanoes.”
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