World Emoji Day: One man's joy, another man's confusion

Contents

Almost everyone uses emojis to express or provoke emotions in text messages. According to a survey conducted by the industry association Bitkom on World Emoji Day, 80% of people in Germany use emojis. Emojis help 51 percent of men surveyed to express themselves better, but only 43 percent of women. 46 percent of respondents are annoyed if they only receive an emoji in response. Emojis are used most frequently (98 percent) in private chats, while only just under 30 percent use them in a professional context with colleagues.

In the beginning was the smiley

Emoticons emerged in the 1980s as a creative combination of punctuation marks to express feelings in text messages. On September 19, 1982, computer science professor Scott Fahlman suggested using the smileys :-) and :-( to distinguish funny from serious messages and prevent misunderstandings.

With the advent of mobile telephony and the Internet in the 1990s, they became increasingly popular. The decisive step towards today's emojis was taken in Japan in 1999, when Shigetaka Kurita designed the first 176 pictograms for the mobile phone provider NTT DoCoMo. These colorful, expressive symbols quickly spread around the world and were incorporated into the Unicode standard in 2010.

Since then, the number and variety of emojis has steadily increased, making them an indispensable part of digital communication for many and a visual language in their own right. There are now over 3782 emojis in the official list of the Unicode Consortium (here without skin colors). If that's not enough, you can create your own emojis with AI on websites or in Apple's upcoming operating system, for example; Apple calls them Genmojis.

Unmanageable number

Over the years, more and more emojis have been added – according to Unicode-Konsortium there are currently 3782 – so that 15 percent of respondents believe there are too many emojis.

Meanwhile, emojis can also make communication more difficult – and not just because of the sheer number. Sometimes they are misinterpreted and, according to the survey, they have already led to confusion in conversations for 56% of respondents, and for 73% of 16 to 29-year-olds.

Examples of misunderstandings

The misinterpretations can have various causes: Emojis are highly context-dependent. The "eye emoji" 👀 can appear curious, suspicious or suggestive, depending on the context. The complexity of human emotions is difficult to represent with individual emojis. For example, feelings such as melancholy or nostalgia are difficult to convey, and even a combination such as 😊😢 is often inadequate. There is a tendency to over-interpret. A "thoughtful face" 🤔 could mean simple reflection or skepticism.

Emojis do not completely replace non-verbal cues. Subtle irony, often represented by a "winky face" 😉, is not always understood correctly. Sarcasm or irony are particularly difficult to convey. A "laughing face" 😂 after a sarcastic remark can be misunderstood if the recipient does not recognize the sarcasm.

Cultural differences also pose challenges when interpreting emojis. A "thumbs up" 👍 is positive in Western cultures, but can be offensive in parts of the Middle East and West Africa. The "OK hand sign" 👌 is considered obscene in some cultures.

Technical hurdles arise due to different representations on different devices. A "grinning face with drops of sweat" 😅 could be interpreted as embarrassed or nervous on one device, and as happy or relieved on another. Generational differences also influence the meaning of emoji. The "crying face" 😭 could be understood ironically by younger people, but literally by older people. Sometimes people also feel offended by emojis, as in the case of a student who asked Apple to revise the "nerd emoji".

The subject of linguistics

The rapid spread of colorful pictograms and their entry into everyday communication has not only brought cinema to the fore, but also linguists. Using WhatsApp corpora, for example, they have investigated the meaning and interpretation of emoticons and emojis in various contexts, their distribution, the development of emojis and the change in meaning. Scientists are even discussing whether emojis to could become a universal language.

Selected publications about emojis

• Glikson, E., Cheshin, A., & van Kleef, G. A. (2018). The Dark Side of a Smiley: Effects of Smiling Emoticons on Virtual First Impressions. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 9(5), 614-625.
• Prada, M., et al. (2018). Motives, frequency and attitudes toward emoji and emoticon use. Telematics and Informatics, 35(7), 1925-1934.
• Dürscheid, Christa; Siever, Christina Margrit (2017): Jenseits des Alphabets – Kommunikation mit Emojis. Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik 45(2), S. 256–285.
• Herring, S. C., & Dainas, A. R. (2017). "Nice picture comment!" Graphicons in Facebook comment threads. Proceedings of the 50th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences.
• Kaye, L. K., Malone, S. A., & Wall, H. J. (2017). Emojis: Insights, Affordances, and Possibilities for Psychological Science. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 21(2), 66-68.
• Filik, R., et al. (2016). Sarcasm and emoticons: Comprehension and emotional impact. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 69(11), 2130-2146. An error occurred during the process.
• Miller, H., et al. (2016). "Blissfully happy" or "ready to fight": Varying Interpretations of Emoji. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 10(1), 259-268.
• Tigwell, G. W., & Flatla, D. R. (2016). Oh that's what you meant!: reducing emoji misunderstanding. Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services Adjunct, 859–866.
• Derks, D., Bos, A. E., & von Grumbkow, J. (2008). Emoticons and online message interpretation. Social Science Computer Review, 26(3), 379-388.

(mack)