2026-07-17 16:44 UTC
Do young and old people interpret (or use) emojis differently? - Yes, to some extent. Actually with most emojis we see a huge overlap in interpretation and also use. But there are some frequent emojis which are, on average, interpreted differently by older and younger people in our studies. For example, the slighly smiling face 🙂 and its upside down variant 🙃 are seen as more positive by older participants, while the little dot-eyes are seen as cold and not authentic ("psychopath eyes") by younger people. Similarly, the winking smiley 😉 is used by the older group to mark any jokes or fun (similarly to the original ;-) emoticon), and younger people find it often completely inappropriate and sexually suggestive #emojis #WorldEmojiDay #linguistics
Replies (2)
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@xinit@mastodon.coffee 2026-07-18 18:42
@tschfflr@fediscience.org I was told that younger people can interpret 👍️ as 🖕 So, now I use the 👍️ with that intent. Because I wasn't before. Stop laughing.
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@vriesk@hachyderm.io 2026-07-20 11:41
@tschfflr@fediscience.org but this comes from the fact that the yellow-faces thing does look different than the "original" ASCII arts of olde. I explicitly try to avoid having my :)s and ;)s turned into yellow faces for this reason, and if I can't, I end up using something quite else.