Diya Saraf

I did my undergraduate degree from Santa Clara University (Bay Area, California) where I graduated Summa Cum Laude in Computer Science and Engineering with a minor in math. I am currently pursuing my graduate studies at University of Southern California. In my free time, I love watching documentaries and solving puzzles. I was fortunate enough to be a Clare Boothe Luce Scholar at Santa Clara University from 2021-2024 and was advised by Yuhong Liu. I am currently a part of the SLURM lab and am advised by Daniel Seita.

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Research

I'm interested in computer security, theory, machine learning and robot manipulation

Papers

The Impact of Emojis on User Engagement with Trolling Content in an Online Platform

This paper investigates the impact of emojis on user engagement in trolling contexts on social media platforms. Utilizing a comprehensive dataset collected from Reddit, this study categorizes emojis by emotional content and popularity to analyze their effects on comments and upvotes. Findings indicate that more popular emojis and emojis that convey emotionality significantly enhance user engagement, while excessive or misplaced informational emojis reduce it. This research offers critical insights for strategic emoji use to foster positive online interactions and mitigate trolling, benefiting content moderators and digital communicators.