You might want to think twice before using emojis in a work setting.
Wayne State University researchers found men and women often interpret common emojis quite differently, leading to misunderstandings.
They also found women tend to interpret neutral or ambiguous facial emojis much more negatively than men. Other examples of emojis the genders interpret differently include the smiling face with horns and eyebrows raised face. The data also showed that men were slightly more likely to use emojis at work than women.
Researcher Lara Jones says given the differences in communication preferences between groups, you should probably tune your emojis to the gender of your recipient (assuming it’s not someone you know super well) and avoid using emojis at all when there is a big power of culture gap between sender and recipient, at least until you get a better sense of the other person’s preferences and communication style.
