The Role of Social Media in Spreading Sticker Usage Across Age Groups in China: Exploring Digital Communication Trends in a Multigenerational Context

Digital communication, especially through social media, has positioned stickers as a critical and expressive tool in daily communication. However due to the huge data base and high formality of sticker, there has been a limited understanding in this subject comparing to emoji. This study investigate how sticker usage varies among five age groups (0-18, 19-25, 26-40, 41-60, 60+) of social media users in China, additionally exploring the main purposes of sticker usage as well as the diffusion of stickers on social media. By employing a mixed-method approach of quantitative survey (n>300) and visualized graphs & charts, we analyze sticker preferences, motivations, and adoption mechanisms across WeChat, Weibo, RED Note, and DouYin for each age group. Stickers are categorized by purposes (emotional, humorous, social bonding, cultural) as well as content (facial, object-based, text-dependent), which would enable a granular analysis of generation-related trends. It has been found in preliminary research that younger users prioritize humor and emotion-based stickers. This study also identifies platform-specific diffusion patterns with algorithmic-recommendation-driven adoption among younger users between peers for emotional connection and that older users tend to be indirectly or passively influenced by the younger users around them. We are, however, challenged by self-reporting bias and sampling limitations that impacted a stratified sampling and scenario-based validation. By bridging the gap between research on emoji and emerging sticker dynamics, this study offers actionable insights for marketers to conduct more age-oriented tailoring algorithms for media users and thus optimize the communication experience on their platforms and potentially also reshape and enhance a cross-generational engagement in Chinas digital landscape.