Thinking of adding an emoji as you text? Think again, say researchers in Britain, as context matters

‘Universal’ facial emotions may not remain so when turned into emojis, University of Nottingham team says after survey of Chinese and British adults. Age, cultural background and gender can influence the way people interpret the pictograms, the researchers say in article for PLOS ONE journal. — SCMP

Texting minus emojis has become unthinkable, with the pictograms now a mainstay of global online communication. But are we really saying what we mean?

“Some ‘universal’ facial emotions may not be ‘universal’ when they transfer to emoji,” according to researchers at the University of Nottingham who carried out a survey of more than 500 British and Chinese adults.