OLDER people are often left baffled by surprised, fearful, sad and angry emojis, a study shows.
But don’t stop sending them to elderly relatives just yet — as they help improve understanding of messages.
Researchers found age, gender and culture all impact how people interpreted emojis.
The study investigated emoji recognition among 270 British and 253 Chinese adults, aged 18 to 84.
They were asked to identify, in random order, 24 symbols from Apple, Windows, Android and WeChat showing six emotions — happy, disgusted, fearful, sad, surprised, and angry.
The older a person was, the less likely they were to understand the meanings of surprised, fearful, sad and angry emojis.
The research, published in journal PLOS One, did not pinpoint a certain age where people grew confused by the symbols.
Lead author Yihua Chen, at the University of Nottingham, added: “Older adults may benefit from the use of emoji to clarify the meaning of more complex and ambiguous messages, such as those intended to be interpreted sarcastically.”
He said older adults tended to focus more on the bottom half of the faces, meaning they were less likely to recognise emotions that weren’t happy or disgusted.
Overall, people were more likely to accurately describe the meaning of the happy emoji and least likely to do so for the disgusted emoji.
Women were better than men at identifying happy, fearful, sad and angry faces.
And Britons seemed more familiar with the disgusted face than Chinese people.
Mr Chen added: “This has important implications when considering emoji use, for example, conversation with partners from different cultures.”
The team said further studies are needed to see how well people recognise emojis both with and without written messages.
Emojis first appeared in Japan in the late 1990s and originally included around 180 characters.
The official number of Unicode Standard emojis, which are available on most devices, has since increased to 3,782.
They now include a poo with eyes, upside-down smiley face — and of course, symbols for grandma and grandad.