Study: People interpret emoji very differently depending on age

In a study of 9,400 users of the Slack corporate messenger, the company's employees found that people of different generations invest completely different meanings in emoji. About it writes Daily Mail.

So, even the notorious eggplant and peach became a bone of contention. Speaking of them, almost a third of the study participants under 40 consider these emoji obscene, while more than 59% and 47% of older Slack users do not see them as a double meaning. A similar dynamic is observed in the case of the winking emoji: younger respondents believe that this symbol has a sexual connotation.

The study also showed that zoomers are much more likely to use the smiling emoji to express passive aggression. The same symbol for 60% of people over 40 does not carry any hidden meanings - only joy.

A similar picture emerges with the skull emoji, which young users use as a reaction to a very funny event. Older users of the messenger believe that the skull emoji means death in the most direct sense.

“Claws” have become the most controversial emoji: if representatives of generation Z associate this symbol with gossip, then for users aged 25 to 40 years, this image means its direct purpose - manicure. For representatives of the older generation, the symbol often caused bewilderment.

Nevertheless, some emoji unite the views of people of all ages: we are talking about crying and laughing emoji - there is no distorted meaning with them.

Emoji appeared in the late 90s of the last century, gradually replacing part of the text. To date, there are 3633 officially recognized emoji. More than 10 billion of these symbols are exchanged by users around the world every day.